From Me to You: A Collaborative Classroom Activity

Activity

From Me to You: A Collaborative Classroom Activity

Lisa Clughen

This engaging classroom activity integrates simple movement to foster collaboration and belonging among students. With just pen, paper, and the rhythmic passing of sheets, this activity gets students moving, interacting, and learning course content together in an engaging way. It’s particularly effective for revision and reflection on learning progress.

Educator prep: Minimal

Duration: Variable

Timing: During a session

ACTIVITY PURPOSE

This activity can be used for assessing student learning at any point during the course. It is especially useful before students’ assessments are due and will help students to revise and assess their learning of key aspects of the course.
This activity combines rhythmic ‘movement integration’ (MI) with course content to enhance students’ learning and wellbeing. It aims to promote positive emotions for learning and facilitate positive student interactions.
There is a great deal of evidence that movement supports learning as it promotes: cognitive skills, a sense of wellbeing, and the prosocial behaviours that underpin community-building. Rhythmic forms of movement can promote prosocial behaviours in a number of surprising ways: research suggests that they may even improve self-esteem and help students to connect with their peers in a supportive way. This is because of a concept called ‘interpersonal synchrony’.

USEFUL FOR

Revision, collaboration, engagement

INSTRUCTIONS

Choose an aspect of the course you wish your students to revise.
Ask your students to form circles of 5-7 people.
Provide each student with a piece of paper and a pen or ask them to use their own.
Ask each student to write their name on the top of a sheet of paper. Reusing scrap paper is a great way to keep this activity sustainable, just make sure that there is no confidential information on the recycled pieces of paper.
Explain to the students that when you give a signal, for example, stopping a piece of music, saying ‘pass the paper to the right’, or simply the word: ‘Go!’ accompanied by an appropriate gesture (hand clap), they should pass their paper to the student to the right.
In the interest of generating the benefits of interpersonal synchrony, students must wait until you give the signal to pass the paper so that they all do so at the same time.
Having passed the paper ask the students to write a response to your question relating to the topic of study on the pieces of paper they received.
You can make the question relevant to the course content revision or, if you decide to use this activity as a warm up/introductory activity, it could be relating to students’ interests.
When they’ve finished writing, ask them to pass it on again at your signal. As the students keep passing the sheet of paper on, ask them to respond to further questions relating to the course content or around your warm-up exercise.
Continue with this activity until the students have their own piece of paper returned. Ensure that the students have time to read and respond to each other’s questions and comments.
Finally, have a debrief as a class, so you can check student’s answers to the activities you have set, answer any questions and raise any further issues.
As a result of the above activity, the students will have checked their understanding of a whole list of a variety of course themes and moved and interacted with each other in the process.

DURATION

Various

ADAPTATIONS AND EXAMPLES

As further suggestions, you could ask the student to: ‘Explain to the person on the sheet one theory/concept etc. you have learned during this course’ or ‘what is the theory of (e.g. ‘negativity bias’) – explain it briefly to your colleague on the sheet?
You could also throw in a question or two to stimulate positive emotions: ‘Mention one thing you have enjoyed in this course’; ‘To finish, please write something nice to the person on the sheet!’

RELATED RESOURCES

Clughen, L. (2023). ‘Embodiment is the future’: What is embodiment and is it the future paradigm for learning and teaching in higher education?’. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, Taylor and Francis.

Lisa Clughen’s Publications and Recommended Reading relating to Embodiment and Movement for Learning, Mental Health and Wellbeing in Higher Education.

On Student Belonging in HE:

WonkHE and Pearson (2022). Building Belonging in Higher Education report: Recommendations for developing an integrated institutional approach.

WonkHE (16 October 2023). Building belonging a year on – how has higher education changed?

On Interpersonal Synchrony as a Way of Cultivating Prosocial Behaviours:

Lumsden, J., Miles, L. K., & Macrae, C. N. (2014). Sync or sink? Interpersonal synchrony impacts self-esteem. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1064.

Rennung, M., & Göritz, A. S. (2016). Prosocial consequences of interpersonal synchrony: A meta-analysis. Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 224(3), 168-189.

On Movement Integration (MI) for Learning:

Madsen, K. L. (2023). Pedagogy of movement integration – a threefold pedagogy grown through action research. Pedagogies: An International Journal. Advance online publication.