Seating Kagan recommends that students be grouped together deliberately in heterogenous groups of four. Each person within the group has a number and a letter assigned to them. This way you can say "work with your shoulder/ face partner" and "Person A starts." Here is a list of ways I have used the letter / number system so far:
I have found that this removes the wasted time where students are fighting over petty things like who goes first or who has to write. It's really helpful!
Increased participation In my class we do a lot of oral questioning. I usually project something on the board and toss a ball for students to make statements or answer questions. Since the Kagan workshop, I have been sharing my presentations with the students via Google Drive so they can work in partners to answer the questions. One partner will open her computer and the other partner will answer the first question. Then they will trade off each slide. This has really increased participation among the shy or spacey students because everyone has to answer at least 50% of the questions. By forcing them to focus on the task, it also provides increased input and repetition, which can be especially helpful for that particular group. Furthermore, it gives them more think-time which usually leads to them asking more questions. I typically format the slides with a question and picture that students verbally respond to, and then the answer is animated to appear on their click so they will have time to think and process. This allows me to circulate and spend time listening to everyone. So far, it's been great!
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