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One minute papers

The basic idea is that at the end of your session (e.g. lecture) you ask students to spend one minute (60 seconds) writing down their personal (and anonymous) answer to one or two questions, such as "What was least clear in this lecture?". Then you collect the scraps of paper and brood over them afterwards, possibly responding in the next session. It's wonderful because it takes only a minute of the students' time (each), requires no technology or preparation, but gives you immediate insight into how your class is doing. There are probably other benefits too.

That is the short version, which is all you really need to give it a try out. Trying it out is probably, if it is at all possible, the best second step in understanding the technique. However when you want more information, theory, and examples, then the rest of this document offers some.

The longer version

Credit might go to: The "minute paper" has long been ascribed to Wilson as he was apparently the first to describe it in the literature: R.C.Wilson "Improving faculty teaching: Effective use of student evaluations and consultants" J. Higher Educ. vol.57 pp.192�211 (1986). More recently, it has been acknowledged that the original source of the idea was Berkeley physicist C. Schwartz. See Barbara Gross Davis, Lynn Wood, and Robert C. Wilson, A Berkeley Compendium of Suggestions for Teaching with Excellence (University of California, Berkeley) (1983) available at http://teaching.berkeley.edu/compendium/suggestions/file95.html See equally http://www-writing.berkeley.edu:16080/wab/2-2-gone.htm

I am addressing this note to teachers like myself: what they might do, and why. However a student could usefully read this, and carry it out privately. They could then use what they write for these one minute papers a) as a useful study habit; b) as a procedure for generating a question to ask as part of their good practice in being a student.

Although your first uses are likely to be generic, if you use it regularly you can focus it to your particular concerns that day for that class, by designing questions with respect to the learning objectives, or important disciplinary skills, or the sequence of development important for that course.

Remaining Contents (click to jump to a section)

"What question do you most wish to have answered at this moment?"

[I.e. tells you what you failed to get across, what you should fix at the start of next time.]

"What was the main point of today's lecture?"

[Often a lot of what you said went aross, but the overall point is not apparent to them, or not apparent that it WAS the chief point.]

"What are the most important questions remaining unanswered?"

