group accountability can be encouraged by in-class reporting of group work.
With newsprint, tape, and plenty of markers, your students can present their
ideas and respond to other ideas as well.
Instructions for activity
• Prepare probing questions as a “jumping-off” point
• Allow students thirty minutes to discuss the questions in their
• Encourage students to spend at least ten minutes discussing
(and not writing) in order to sort out main ideas and concerns.
• Allow students the rest of their discussion time to jot down
ideas on newsprint.
• Require students to post their newsprint sheets around the classroom
and tour the answers recorded by other groups.
• Suggest that students look for common themes and contradictions
among group reports.
• Require students to make notes regarding themes and contradictions
on the newsprint they are reading and examining.
• Ask students to jot down other questions on a separate sheet
• Bring the whole class together to debrief the notations on the
newsprint and students’ perceptions of the activity.
Reference: Brookfield & Preskill (1999). Strategies for reporting
small-group discussions to the class.