PINATA - Group Discussions

Break the piñata for an example.

Case 1Dr. Gilmore teaches an engineering class with 45 students. In her 75-minute class, she engages her students in mini lectures by using active learning strategies such as Think-Pair-Share and Closing Summary. Dr. Gilmore often puts her students in small groups, gives them a topic to discuss for 15-20 minutes, then she floats around and brings the students back to sum up. This approach worked out fine first, but her students quickly became unmotivated in this all-two-familiar group discussion format. Can you recommend one alternative active learning strategy from the module to help Dr. Gilmore reinvigorate her small group activity? What considerations should she take into account when using your recomended strategy?

What's inside?

BREAK THE PINATA!

Back

Gallary WalkDr. Gilmore can put her students in 5-6 groups. Each group brainstorms a given prompt, documents group ideas, and creates posters, post-it-notes, images, texts, concept maps, outlines, etc.Afterwards, students post their creations on the wall around the room, visit other groups' gallaries, and do peer review. Considerations

• If movement is possible, have students work in small groups to create a poster to show.
• If movement is NOT possible, students can turn around to peers close by, use technology to do a virtual gallary. For example, a creation of an outline in Canvas small-group discussion forums that can be peer reviewed by the class.

Small Group Activity

Fun guaranteed:)