Do you ever feel like both you and your students will explode if you have to listen to one more presentation? Try turning your next set of presentations into a “soap opera” script. Each student must carry on a dialogue with their presentation teammates. The dialogue must be passed from student to student, with each student speaking only a few lines at a time. For example:

Alyssa: Did you know that Henry Ford shortened the work day from 10 to 8 hours while doubling worker’s pay from $2.50 a day to $5.00 a day?
Arianna: He did, but he also make his employees work so hard during those 8 hours a day that many quit after less than a year.
Amaya: Workers could not talk while working. They were not even supposed to smile or take a bathroom break. And they were only given 15 minutes for lunch.
Alyssa: But Ford did provide nice housing for his workers.
Arianna: Nice if you did not mind unscheduled inspections and being forced to going to church every Sunday. Anyone violating Ford’s code of conduct was immediately fired.
Amaya: Not only that, Ford was a racists. He paid African Americans less than whites and he hated Jews.
Alyssa: His new assembly line method produced millions of cars, but was the human cost worth it?

Not only do the students producing the dialogue really enjoy bringing a little drama into the presentation, the audience enjoys not know what is coming next. This is much more interesting than simply stating all the facts.

For assessment I have each presenter create a multiple choice question that engages thinking, not just rote memorization. I create the quizzes in Schoology and the rest of the class takes the quiz after each presentation.

The students enjoy creating and listening to the presentations. The quizzes help engage the audience and provide assessment feedback. All around, this is a great way to learn new material. And, if you want to put a label on this method, it is the jigsaw method of learning.