Activity
Community building activities, Ongoing engagement, Reflective activities

Two-Minute Paper

Maha Bali

Maha Bali

This is a great activity for capturing students’ learning, and helping the teacher to understand what students need to know more of, and what they enjoyed in class.

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ACTIVITY PURPOSE

Capturing student learning or for use as a cool-down activity at the end of a class. It can be adopted to check students’ understanding after they have finished a reading, video or module.

USEFUL FOR

This is a great activity for capturing students’ learning and helping the teacher to understand what students need to know more of, and what they enjoyed in class. It is based on the famous Minute Paper by Angelo and Cross, view a sample Google form with example questions to ask students. A traditional Minute Paper asks two questions:

  • What was the most important thing you learned today [or from this item]?
  • What remains unclear? What questions remain for you?

The Two-Minute paper adds the following question: What did you enjoy most in today’s class? And maybe a fourth question: What do you hope/wish for in future classes?

By continuing to collect responses into the same Google form (or whatever survey tool your institution allows i.e. Nearpod or SurveyMonkey), you can also see a student’s learning over time while also reviewing the different reactions of your students across the class on any given day.

PREPARATION

You will need 15 minutes or so to prepare. Create the Google form or survey form with the questions once at the beginning of the semester, and re-use it whenever you like, without any additional preparation.

INSTRUCTIONS

Create a form with 4 open-ended questions suggested below. View a sample Google form you can replicate.

  • What was the most important thing you learned today [or from this item]?
  • What remains unclear? What questions remain for you?
  • What did you enjoy most in today’s class?
  • What do you hope/wish for in future classes?

I recommend collecting student email addresses so you know who answered, and sending them their own responses automatically, so they can keep their reflections for later. I also recommend keeping the date question so you know which class they’re reflecting on.

DURATION

Around 2 minutes of class time and can be done outside of class. 

ADAPTATIONS AND EXAMPLES

This activity can be done in class or outside of class. It can also be done to reflect on a class session, a particular reading, video or anything else.

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

Any surveying or polling tool that allows open-ended questions, even one inside your learning management system.

USEFUL RESOURCES

ABOUT

  • Educator prep: None
  • Student prep: None
  • Synchronous, Asynchronous
  • Polling tool
  • Duration: 5-30 mins

This activity is one of a series of activities from Equity Unbound, focused on equitable online community building. 

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