Even when all of the teams choose one answer, there is almost always a "minority opinion" within each team where one or more of the students liked an alternative choice. What I like to do when everyone picks the same answer is I will ask one or more of the teams to justify the choice, then I will ask for the voices of the "minority opinions." I am rarely disappointed--the students who argued and "lost" in their teams are frequently happy to be able to justify their choices to the larger group. Sometimes, students will ALL pick the wrong answer--these are some of my favorite scenarios--and a rare student will then have the chance to describe why they alone chose the correct answer.
I will also ask the students to justify their decision to avoid the options that they did not choose. Many times I will ask them to go through every option. They cannot get away with just picking one choice and then go on.
Ruth
-----Original Message-----
From: Team-Based Learning [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jennifer Imazeki
Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2010 9:59 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: MC vs open-ended applications?
Hi all,
I will be trying TBL for the first time in the fall and am working
through lots of issues. One has to do with the structure, and
reporting, of the team application exercises. My students will be
using clickers for the IRATs (though probably the IF-AT forms for the
GRATs), and I was planning to start many of the team exercises with an
individual clicker question, to get students thinking about the issue
on their own before turning to the group. But I'm a little worried
about having all the team exercises set up as multiple-choice
questions because I wonder how that will impact the ensuing
discussion. For example, I can imagine a scenario where the majority
of teams selects one of the responses; even if a team that chooses a
different response has a good reason for selecting that, the other
students may just think they are 'right' because they are with the
majority, and not really engage in the discussion. Of course, with
many of the applications, there is not necessarily a right answer so
the key will be in their reasoning but still, I wonder if having
multiple-choice options will create an 'illusion' in students' minds
that there are right and wrong responses. I've thought about giving
them whiteboards instead and having them write a short response but
then I'm worried that, given the size of the room (70 students), not
everyone will be able to see what everyone else has written.
Any thoughts, experiences, advice?
Jennifer
****************************
Jennifer Imazeki
Department of Economics
San Diego State University
homepage: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~jimazeki/
Economics for Teachers blog: http://economicsforteachers.blogspot.com
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