One-Minute Papers

This strategy can be used to gather feedback from you students after a lesson is taught. First,
write the following questions on the front board and have students answer them by themselves.

What was the most important thing you learned from the lesson?
What is still unclear about the lesson? What questions do you still have?
What is one thing about the topic that you want to know more about?

Next, put students together into groups to facilitate a discussion. Have students do a Round
Robin (take turns talking) and discuss each of their answers to the questions listed on the board.
Once students have all answered the questions, then have students figure out which answers
they have in common. They can then take this information and come up with the most popular
answer to each question, which they then can discuss with the class as a whole.

Uncommon Commonalities
If you are looking for a strategy that will help your students become more cohesive, then this is a
great one to try. Group students into teams of four and have them come up with a team name.
Give each team member a piece of paper and have them fold it the long way in fours and label
each section, 1, 2, 3, and 4 at the top. Next, write a question on the front board, such as How
many siblings do you have? The teams goal is to discuss the question with their group and
figure out what they all have in common. If all four team members have one brother, then they
will write that in column four, if all three of them have one brother then they will write that in
column three and so on. The activity continues with each new question that is put on the board.

Forced Debate
This strategy requires students to use their communication skills to work within a group. Heres
how it works: The teacher writes a proposition on the front board, such as Should there be a
vending machine in the school cafeteria? then the students who agree move to one side of the
classroom and the students who disagree move to other side. Once students are on one side of
the classroom, that is now their group. The teacher then forces them to debate the opposing side
that they have chosen. This strategy really utilizes students critical thinking skills and forces
them to really think about the question as a whole in order to argue for the opposing side rather
than what they really feel about the question.

Cooperative Graffiti
Another great brainstorming technique to try is cooperative graffiti. This strategy requires
students to think about a topic and write down as many ideas as possible using different-colored
pens. To start, divide students into small groups and give each group a large, butcher block
piece of paper and a variety of colorful pens. Write down a broad topic on the front board, and on
your command Go!, instruct students to write down as many ideas as they can that correlate
with the topic you wrote on the board. Once the time is up (about 5-10 minutes), then have
students try and organize their colorful ideas into categories.