Friday in class we took time to review for our upcoming genetics unit test on Monday. Review days for us are a little bit different than you typical review day. We used a up-tempo activity to acquire information and prepare ourselves for our test.

Sharing the Work Load

We first divide into five groups and assign questions/terms for each group to answer. Each group will answer only the questions assigned to them. In addition, each group is given a scribe. This person is responsible for recording all review notes online. The reason for this is to create a document that all students can reference back to….this becomes very useful for students that might have been absent that day or did not complete their study guide.

Sharing is Caring

After each group has completed their section, a “representative” from each group is selected. This representative will then rotate around to each group and teach their information to the new group of students. After the representative has taught their material, the group then teaches their materials to the representative. Each time students rotate they have 5 minutes to teach and learn the material for that particular station. After they have rotated four times, each person has completed their study guide with information shared by the representatives.

Why?

We use this technique instead of more traditional methods because it gets the students moving and interacting with each other, as opposed to sitting and listening to me review countless terms and content. In addition, other teachers might hand out completed study guides to the students….mine are blank. The reason is because I want them to own the responsibility for gathering the information. By using each other they can acquire and learn the content better than I could teach them by simply holding a review lecture. In other words, I let them do the work while I do nothing…..well, almost nothing. I believe that their role as students is to work from bell to bell and my role as their teacher is to field any questions and add clarification.

Mr. McClung