This plenary activity is fantastic for getting students to work collaboratively. It’s very ingenious (some would say downright sneaky) and effectively results in EVERY STUDENT taking part.
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Here’s the sample activity – it’s called Partners in Crime.
Number of people: Any group size.
Materials: 10 straight forward test questions based on the lesson content.
Time: 10 – 15 minutes.
Directions:
- Students work in pairs.
- Tell students they have five minutes to go through the day’s lesson content with their partner because there is going to be a short test, the results of which will determine how much homework they receive.
- Place a graph on the wall/board showing scores as percentages (10%-100%) with corresponding homework assignments (from ‘100% = no homework’ down to ‘10% = 10 homework questions’ or similar).
- After the five minutes’ preparation time, tell students only one person from each pair will sit the test and that they will be sharing the mark their partner achieves. Get them to decide which of them will sit the test. This can be done by flipping a coin, volunteering, mud wrestling etc.
- Once they have decided and are sitting contentedly (having volunteered the most able student to sit the test) tell them that the other partner will actually be the one to complete the task.
- The first time you try this there won’t be much collaboration (unless of course you explain what you have planned in full at the start) but in subsequent lessons you can be sure partners will work hard to make sure they have both retained as much as possible from the lesson.
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