Working Theory of Practice Page 2
Ironically, it all started with a review. I was at the end of a unit and needed a review activity before the test, so I decided to try student-centered as opposed to teacher-centered learning for my review activity. I set up five different stations, each one reviewing a different aspect of the material, and each one having them organize the material in a different way. some stations came directly from classwork and had them working on problems, but others had them demonstrate a concept using a skit, or coming up with an analogy for another concept (See Appendix 1). Students were assigned into groups, and were instructed to rotate from station to station every five minutes, completing as much as possible of each station in that allotted time slot.
What surprised me the most about this activity was that my “key” students who normally have all of the answers for me during lecture fell to the wayside. Instead, a whole new group of leaders emerged and excelled at these activities. These students were the ones that in lecture, are the sleepers. However, in this activity, they were actively engaged the whole time, they were leading their classmates in completing the activities, and they were the ones people went to for answers. And here I was, just thinking they were sleeping… Furthermore, what was so interesting to me while watching this activity play out was that most of the class was fully engaged the entire time. There was only one student who kind of sat by the wayside and watched everyone else doing the activity, but other than that, people were very involved with their task at hand.
This level of engagement with the material fascinated me, because it is so rare that I have the whole class engaged in the content material at one time. Therefore, I decided to ask the students directly what they thought about it in the form of a survey. The feedback was very positive—most students said that this review activity was fun and they it helped them to learn the materials. One student even said “Because we had the review activity, I did not have a hard time studying. I would not even call it studying. I just reviewed the material before the quiz. Having such activities helps us remember better (Unit 2 Survey, 11/5/12).”
What surprised me the most about this activity was that my “key” students who normally have all of the answers for me during lecture fell to the wayside. Instead, a whole new group of leaders emerged and excelled at these activities. These students were the ones that in lecture, are the sleepers. However, in this activity, they were actively engaged the whole time, they were leading their classmates in completing the activities, and they were the ones people went to for answers. And here I was, just thinking they were sleeping… Furthermore, what was so interesting to me while watching this activity play out was that most of the class was fully engaged the entire time. There was only one student who kind of sat by the wayside and watched everyone else doing the activity, but other than that, people were very involved with their task at hand.
This level of engagement with the material fascinated me, because it is so rare that I have the whole class engaged in the content material at one time. Therefore, I decided to ask the students directly what they thought about it in the form of a survey. The feedback was very positive—most students said that this review activity was fun and they it helped them to learn the materials. One student even said “Because we had the review activity, I did not have a hard time studying. I would not even call it studying. I just reviewed the material before the quiz. Having such activities helps us remember better (Unit 2 Survey, 11/5/12).”