No doubt you’ve had plenty of discussions with your classes on economic issues. One of the challenges is to keep students on task and try and get contributions from all students. In order to overcome these issues I have developed a set of playing cards with certain statements on each. Students receive 8 playing cards with different assessment objectives/ skills/ elements of written work in economics – see photo below.
An exam essay question is given to students and then they debate the questions amongst themselves. However students can only speak when they play a card and they must follow what the card says – e.g. Argument, Building on someone’s point etc. This limits each student’s number of responses and makes sure the discussion helps students practice for an assessment, according to the assessment objectives. It also allows for greater contributions from other members of the class. It generally works well although at times you may have to play one of your own cards to keep students on task. I have attached a link to a document with all the statements – below. All you have to do is buy some packs of playing cards and use wide sellotape to attach statements to the cards. Be interested to know how others get on.
ECONFIX 