In our work in the Archives and Special Collections Centre, we run a lot of one-off workshops, in liaison with tutors, for courses.
These are often to introduce researching with archives, sharing the importance of considering archival bias, and may be tailored in terms of subject-matter, to the course brief.
Often within these sessions, we introduce short group activities in order to encourage students to engage with the concepts around archives and also the content we hold. The challenge is, we have not had previous contact with the students, so there is not the opportunity to build up a relationship with the individual students and understand their needs, ahead of time.
My colleague Georgina Orgill did some work for her PG cert on the expectations around verbal participation in class. Her solution was use of padlets, to facilitate students who may not feel comfortable to participate verbally, but may feel more confident to do so by writing on a padlet. I would like to extend this activity in some way, with group work.
With the group activities, these are already structured in a way that is meant to facilitate peer-to-peer learning, and then with a nominated student feeding back something to the general class discussion.
What we have noticed is sometimes during the general class discussion stage – students appear to switch off from listening to the other groups’ reporting. (If we have a group of say, 30 students, and they are grouped into 6 groups of 5, it can take a longish time for each group to feed back). This does not foster a very inclusive environment, and can also be a challenge for students with short attention spans.
I am wondering if there is a way we might adopt a mode of activity that allows for group activity and feedback, using the padlets to encourage those who do not feel comfortable to contribute verbally, but also prevents people from zoning out.
I would like to try doing something like what we did for a couple of the sessions in the ‘Theories, Policies, and Practices’ course, where groups feed back to each other and then swapped over, to report to each other, on what another group came up with.
I am not sure if this was based on a particular theoretical approach to group work, but I thought it was interesting.
But perhaps, do so in a digital way, on padlet, where we can build up the group responses in one place, collaboratively.
Lucy, this is a really valuable area that you’re focusing on. It is also something I’ve experienced when delivering workshops. I agree that tools like Padlet are a good choice, especially given their accessibility through mobile phones. It is good for rooms with no computers in them so students can still access them.
From my experience, even with tools like Padlet, some students who are shy about verbal participation might still feel uncomfortable putting their thoughts into writing. I explored making posts anonymous on Padlet to help with this which seemed to work to a certain level with some group participation. Have you considered that as an option? Also how will measure engagement and effectiveness of Padlet in addressing the ‘zoning out’ issue? How will you gauge if students are truly connecting with the content and each other’s contributions?
ALso, is there a way to still incorporate verbal contributions for students who might prefer this way rather than articulating their thoughts in writing? This could be good opportunity to have a another collaborative learning experience as well.
I really like your idea for the peer-to-peer feedback activity. Are you imagining this being entirely Padlet-based, or would it involve presentations, with Padlet as a supporting tool? I am looking forward to how you will further develop it.