Hi all! This is my first time running through Unit 4. I have my students in groups of 3-4. U4L07 Identifying User Needs has the students working in their full groups when they brainstorm an idea for an app. But U4L08 makes it sound like each individual student makes their own paper prototype based off of that same idea? Is that how you all run it?
My two concerns are that A) I have some groups built around students who struggle having some stronger partners, and they will REALLY struggle to complete this project on their own, and B) that is a LOT of materials. I have classes of around 30, so that’s over 700 index cards (plus 120 individual projects to grade).
Has anyone had success keeping them grouped up? Do you keep them in their larger groups from the previous day, or break them into pairs? Any advice would be appreciated!
Hi Daniel!
Firstly, welcome to the forum! Your situation is super relatable and a common one that has come up in a lot of the workshops I’ve facilitated.
When I’ve had class sizes that large, I definitely look for solutions to all of the issues you’ve described- while keeping the integrity of the project intact. I often have students work in pairs and I think you’re smart to group them intentionally to help students . Likewise, I’ve found greater success in this sort of project with students working in pairs than with groups of 3-4 where I’d have to do way more task delegation to ensure accountability of each group member. But I do think having them work in pairs is totally doable and would ensure learning for both group members. I would also look to Amazon for index cards as you can get about 500 for $7.50 (and stock up on rubber bands).
As far as the idea for the paper prototype, I always like to give me students more choice in projects as I feel I get better results and buy-in/effort vs. requiring them to use the same idea. The only caveat to that is that you may have to prompt them a bit as they begin the process for creating the paper prototype with some of the same questions from Lesson 7 to ensure they’re thinking in terms of user, user needs/barriers/opportunities, etc. It may extend the project timeline a bit, but you’ll have better results in the end.
Others may chime in as well as to how they’ve found success. I hope this helps a little!
Wendy
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