#3 in our series of in-class flipped activities

Placemat involves students working alone and together around a single piece of paper with the goal of reaching consensus on a topic.

Benefits

• Creates a visual display of learning
• Develops and fosters group-work skills – demands skills like sharing space, reserving judgement, listening, critiquing

 When?

• After pre-reading
• Checking level of knowledge
• Problem solving (each student writes own solution and then shares)
• To come to a consensus
• To assign each student a question or individual resource gathering

What do you need?

• Desks arranged to allow students to reach their section of paper
• Paper
• Model of page set-up to display or copy

Procedure

1.  Divide paper into equal sections based on the number of group members and place a square or circle in the centre of the paper
2. Each member writes his/her ideas in an assigned section of the placemat
3. The groups’ central idea (consensus) is written in the centre circle or square after the group has shared ideas

Layout options

The image below shows a variety of possible schemas for your placemat diagram

Idea from online source – Kielven, J 2001. Teaching Masters
Adapted from: Barrie Bennett & Carol Rolheiser, 2001. Beyond Monet: The Artful Science of Instructional Integration.