Teaching Activity: Complete Turn Taking

[Rachel McKinnon has been kind enough to share another guest post with us--ES.]

Sometimes it might seem hard to generate constructive, cooperative class  discussion. Often we have a few students who dominate open discussion,  with most students spending our classes in silence. And some of us are  particularly concerned about getting students from underrepresented  groups to participate, especially in spaces where the dominant voices  are typically (white straight cis) men.

I would like to share an activity that was passed along to me last year, called "Complete Turn Taking." I now put aside a number of days each term for this exercise, as students just love it. For my MWF introductory courses, I set aside most Fridays for this activity.

Students have to bring 2-3 typed/written questions to class on the week's material. They organize into groups of 4, and I stress diversity in the groups. If there isn't an attached group project with this exercise,  I try to have groups to change from week to week. And I encourage students to learn each others' names.

At the beginning, one student has up to one minute to pose their question, during which time no one is allowed to interrupt. They signal that they're done by explicitly saying, "I'm finished." Then, the student to the left has up to one minute, also uninterrupted, to say what they think. They also signal that they're done with, "I'm finished." This continues until everyone has had their minute of uninterrupted time, then I give the groups two minutes of open discussion. This is one round. Once that's over, the group starts over, in round two, with a question from student #2 (to the left of the first student), and the activity proceeds as before.

I find that groups can get through 2-3 cycles (8-12 rounds) in a 50min class. My time is spent wandering around the room popping in and out of conversations, but rarely participating unless asked. I find that the groups are fairly self-sufficient.

This exercise does all sorts of useful pedagogical things at once. It gives students who otherwise don't feel safe speaking in front of an entire class the space to speak free from interruption. Moreover, because students aren't allowed to interrupt (except for during the open discussion phase), it's structurally difficult for some students to dominate others and to use silencing techniques. The students really love it. They find that they get a lot out of talking to each other, and I find that groups are very often coming up with the
right answers to questions. And I always like to find ways to include peer instruction into my classes.

Try it! Tell me how it goes.

P.S. This was passed along to me during some fantastic discussions of feminist pedagogy by Juli Thorson, while I was visiting Ball State University earlier this year. She credits David Concepcion for giving it to her, and Claudia Card for giving it to him.