Room
B-1292-223

Turn and Talk

 

Turn and Talk

Encourage collaborative learning by sharing and teaching to each other

The Subject is:

OCC104 – Person, Environment, Occupation Foundations. Focuses on the underpinning knowledge of occupational therapy and reflecting on own perceptions of people and occupations to identify and challenge personal bias.

The students will learn:

The students will learn that their own view of the world is culturally defined and not necessarily the ‘right way’, but rather ‘one way’. It is important for future client-centred practice, that students perceive that the client is the expert on their own experience, and don’t enforce their own values.

This is what it looks like (active learning):

  • Students are asked to turn to the person next to them (Figure 1) and develop 5 criteria to define someone as ‘a child’. Several pairs are asked to share their results.
  • Students are then shown a video of the TED talk: “What adults can learn from kids” by Adora Svitak (who is 10 years old), and asked to reflect, in their pairs, how their criteria for defining a child differs from Adora’s. Several pairs are asked to share their results.
  • Students are then shown photographs of children from around the world who are not playing the traditional role of a western child attending school (e.g. carrying water, beauty pageants, children in poverty) and are asked to reflect in pairs, how their culture effects their perception of ‘childhood’. Several pairs are asked to share their results.
  • Students are then asked to re-define their criteria of childhood and share what they have changed.
Figure 1.

The effect of learning this way:

Reflection – asking students to consider their existing beliefs and then challenging these beliefs encourages reflection and also helps to apply the new knowledge.
Deep learning – speaking to each other requires students to actively engage with the material and challenge their current construction/understanding to allow reconstruction of new understanding of the material.
GLO – This type of learning helps students to succeed in life and work after study through Graduate Learning Outcomes standards such as:
  • Professional Practice by demonstrating knowledge, capabilities, practices, attitudes, ethics and dispositions of their discipline or profession.
  • Lifelong Learning by continually looking at their own experience to learn new experience and to improve through reflection and self-appraisal.
  • Global Citizenship via considering the diversity of experience and culture and the impact of this on their own perception of ‘right’.

How can this be applied to other classes/student cohort?

This approach could be used in any classroom, in lecture theatres or flat floor spaces by providing a challenging question, asking students to discuss it and share their responses, and then promoting learning by providing new information. Technologies such as Poll Everywhere, (Figure 2) can be added so questions can be projected to the whole class and students are invited to vote for their answers after they speak with their partner. The results and graphs can be shown on the screen to help with understanding the student’s learning.
Figure 2 – Using Poll Everywhere to get students feedback on what they are learning after they turn and talk with their peers
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