Weekly Teaching and Learning Email - Silent Debate (Thank you Mr Ashley)

1st May 2015

Dear Colleagues,

On this momentous weekend of the biggest fight in boxing history, according to some,  we have an excellent idea from Mr Ashley to facilitate a non-verbal academic showdown. 

To follow on from using debate in the classroom, a silent debate is a great technique to get students up and actively participating in a debate and sharing and generating ideas on a topic. Sometimes students have ideas but might be overshadowed by more confident speakers, especially if English is their second language. I find this techniques allows them to confidently share their ideas.

1. Place 5 different A3 sheets around the room with a key idea/topic.

Contentious statements work best! Students then walk around the room to share their opinions on the topic by writing it down on the paper. You could give different people different coloured pens to see who is writing what statement.

2. Students then go back and comment further on the comments that have been made.

3. Finally, group the students together, I suggest 5 groups but it can be less, and ask them to summarise the most interesting findings before feeding the idea back to the class.

Thank you once again Mr Ashley, if anyone has any questions please contact him directly.

Have a great weekend and good luck Manny Pacquiao.

Best regards,
Neil