The big thing is the sessions themselves, as I mentioned, there isn't a set expert in the field, it's completely collaborative and everyone is encouraged to contribute. It's a discussion more than anything else. So that's what I found through my chats on twitter with my fellow AP World teachers, was the idea of an edcafe. It's based on the same principle where the students pick the topics for discussion, and they lead these discussions, all I had to do was facilitate and keep track of time. I tweaked things a bit from the original which the following video explains.
So we split this into 2 days as we're right smack in the middle of Unit 3. So I thought this would be a good way to review some topics we fly through or perhaps things they were hoping to learn more about. So on day 1 toward the end of class, we explained how the discussions would go and allowed them to put topics on the board that they wanted covered. Topics covered most of the Unit 3 staples; the Byzantines, the Americas, Islamic Caliphates, but had some things that we briefly cover like the Crusades and Charlemagne, and was glad that each class had a session on writing essays and one even had one on sharing study tips. So I helped step in and create our 8 session topics, combining similar topics if/when it was needed. After we got our sessions decided upon, I opened it up to volunteers to lead these discussions, and in 2 of my 4 classes, I had volunteers for all 8 topics, and only needed to use my wheel of (mis)fortune to choose the leader once in class class and twice in the other. So I met briefly with the leaders and told them their expectations and that between the two of them they had to come up with 4-5 discussion questions to guide the groups and be prepared to write down any key ideas or questions from the discussions tomorrow.
Today was our discussion day. I have pretty large classes (32-34) so we had about 8-9 in each group. I briefly reminded the students of the expectations for the day. Everyone was expected to be taking notes in the groups that they weren't leading. For those that lead, we split it into two sessions, so they'd rotate and take notes in one session and lead groups in the other. At the end of class I'd either collect their notes for all 8 sessions, or the leaders' discussion questions and points along with their notes for the session they didn't lead in. This way everyone was responsible for participating and being engaged in some way or another. After my initial set up and final explanations, I was on the sidelines for the rest of class, controlling the clock and making the transition between the 1st and 2nd sessions went smoothly. I was really pleased with the conversations I heard all day. I think the students got a decent amount out of today, learning about a lot of different topics and some of the students I spoke to thought it was helpful and a good activity.
I know before our next one of these in Unit 4, I'll need to make some tweaks however. Some leaders (I had two per topic) really just facilitated the conversation and allowed it to be more collaborative, especially the essays and study tip topics since they all knew no one was an expert yet. But some leaders tended to dominate the conversation and they'd ask a question and then answer it immeidately. I'm torn with this, because they obviously went and researched their topic and are sharing worthwhile information, but it became somewhat less of a discussion, and some students then went into their next session expecting to be taught all about the topic rather than actually discussing it. I think next time I'll work with the leaders to have it be more about what does the grow know and more importantly, what does the group need help with and how can this group discuss and enlighten one another. But I had some report back that some groups felt that no one really knew much of anything, so I already know where my focus should be when we review and prepare for the unit test. I know the essays and study tips sessions went well because it was much more about how can we share together and that is my goal for these rather than have two students become experts and tell their peers. Both have their positives, but I feel with the later, some key points may still be missed, where if it's truly about sharing the information, it forces all involved to collaborate and come up with answers and possible solutions. You know those real world skills everyone harps on so often.
But going through the notes and discussion points, I know there was good discussions and a lot of work done. I had another teacher come in and sit in on a couple sessions to show him and talk about using these for his classes and he was really impressed with how the conversations were going. So first time through, I'll call it a success. Certainly need to poll more students to get their ideas for how to tweak this before we do it again in December.
Thanks for reading, hope this was helpful. If you have any questions about it, leave it in the comments or ask me on twitter
