Why?

• Verbal skills and communication

• Good for reviewing material

• Good for learners to test their knowledge

• Support an opinion

When to use this

This can be a great way to review large concepts, where students will need to produce a longer answer/procedure such as:

• How does photosynthesis work?

• What were the primary causes of the American Civil War?

• What does this chart/table tell us about ____?

• How did this character change in the Hunger Games?

• Or - support an opinion about _____

I have used this strategy in the past to have my students write the test questions for an upcoming quiz that they would take at the end of the week. I found that the best questions were the ones I would have asked anyway. In this case, I had each student write a multiple-choice question (or a true/false question), and circle the correct answer.

On paper, it looks more complicated than it really is, I'm glad to come model this in your class one day if you'd like!

Procedure

• Students write a response to the question on an index card

  • • Students do NOT put their name on the card

• Students then shuffle the index cards by walking around the class and trading them quickly with others.

  • • I play music during this time - I do this for about 30 seconds

    • The shuffle should create anonymity

• When the music stops, they pair up (or make a group of 3 if you have an odd number of students)

  • • For some reason, this is the hardest part! If you need 1 group of three, you may have to separate some students yourself to make pairs. Students like to stand with their friends

    • If a student ends up with their own card somehow, ask them to do a quick trade with another student nearby

• At this point, ideally, students are in pairs, and they each have an index card in their hand (and they do NOT know who wrote it)

• On the BACK of the card, students will give each index card a score based on the quality of the response written on the card

  • • The pair of students must decide how many points each card should receive

    • The pair of students have 7 points to give

    • If both cards are pretty good, one would get a score of 4, and one would get a score of 3 (or 5 and 2)

    • If one is REALLY good and one is REALLY bad, one card might get a score of 7, and one a score of zero

    • But they MUST distribute 7 points between both cards

    • I usually give about 60-90 seconds for this process

• "Thank your partner" and then repeat the process 2-3 more times

  • • "Shuffle" the cards, walk around the room for 30 seconds trading

    • When the music stops, pair up with a NEW person and make sure you are not re-scoring the same card again

    • If you see the same card again, do a quick trade with another classmate near you

    • Discuss, assign 7 points, write the score on the back of the card

    • Rinse and repeat

• After 3 rounds (or more?) students return to their seats with whichever card they happen to have in their hand (it will NOT be their own)

  • • Students each add up scores to get a TOTAL score for that card

    • Theoretically, a perfect score would be 21 (3 rounds x 7 possible points)

• See the extensions below to figure out what you want to do with this information

Extensions - Now What?

1. Gallery walk

Since I used this as an opportunity for my students to write test questions, I had students place cards on the table, and walk around - this is essentially a review for the test (they would theoretically see ALL of the test questions and the answers)

2. Read-Aloud

"Who has a card with a score of 20? .... read the response out loud for the class" [Repeat for scores of 19, 18, 17, 16, whichever number you want to go to]

3. Test Questions

When I used this for test questions, I would pick an arbitrary number "If your card has a score of 12 or higher, put it in the pile on the right, scores of 11 or lower, to the pile on the left." I would curate the pile for duplicates (and also questions that I had no intention of putting on a test). I would use the "good" pile for the gallery walk (see above)