How’s that for a catchy title? It’s about as exciting as discovering that most of your students did not read the assigned reading or watch the assigned video. The remedy might be to assign outlining or note taking. Maybe give a quiz! How about doing a reflection? Even after all of these are you still getting blank stares instead of a great discussion?

Recently, I had my students in four classes read or listen to a chapter in the book, “The Half Has Never Been Told.” They were required to take “prolific” notes. I broke the reading down into three parts that were due during three consecutive days.

Now for the good part. Instead of having a discussion, I had a contest following each day of reading. I would read a question aloud. Teammates (I have five to six teams in each class) were given a few minutes to discuss their notes and come up with a good answer to the question. The first answer was determined by “Popsicle Sticks”, an app that randomly selects students. When you select the one student at a time option, the app even says their name aloud. That got everyone’s attention because no one knew who would go first. After the first answer, team reporters were allowed to either dispute the answer or add to the answer. For every answer given by a teammate, the team was given a point. I included about five or six questions for each contest. At the end I announced the team standings.

I noticed that most everyone was really engaged. The engagement improved each day over the three days. On the first day someone always asked about how this contest would be graded. It told them we were doing the contest to experience the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. No grades would be given. Everyone seemed to be perfectly happy with this. On day two and three the contests were met with anticipation.

One great outcome was that students were really thinking about how they could add value to the previous answer. Many ideas were suggested, most expanding on the previous answers. We were having a good discussion in the form of a contest.

Many students mentioned the contests in their “Friday Feedback” assignments. Many commented on how the discussions helped them understand the material much better. They thought it was a great way to use their notes. They enjoyed the contests and asked to do more of them. They were not too thrilled about the “Popsicle Sticks” random name selection but agreed that it helped keep everyone engaged. Overall, the comments were overwhelmingly positive. This one is a winner! I will be doing it again.