Participants in the inaugural Program for Effective Teaching & Learning (PETAL)–an initiative to provide new WCU faculty the opportunity to hone and share teaching skills and methodologies during their first year–produced capstone projects exploring evidence-based aspects of pedagogy. Caitlin Brown, an assistant professor of political science, created this guide.

First-Draft Thought: A way of framing students’ contributions to class discussions that lowers the stakes of their participation, encourages creativity, and invites the listeners to offer constructive feedback. 

For many students, talking in class is a daunting prospect, especially when it comes to offering opinions on new topics that they haven’t yet mastered or entirely digested. They have also been reared in a culture that expects our every public utterance to be “correct.” While it is undoubtedly beneficial to encourage students to think deeply before forming opinions and reaching conclusions, that only occurs when we first give them license to think. One way to do so is to remind students that most of what crosses their minds and comes out of their mouths during class are first-draft thoughts. They are early impressions that they can expect to refine over time with more thought and helpful feedback from others. Framing their contributions to class discussions as their first-draft thoughts relieves students of the worry that what they say in class must be perfectly polished and unimpeachable and instead encourages collaboration in the same way that peer editing does for early iterations of papers. First-draft thoughts are invitations for the class to think together.

Jekyll and Hyde Essays: An assignment that requires students to argue for and against a controversial statement and then reflect on what can be learned from the debate. 

Jekyll and Hyde essays consist of three parts. The instructor prepares a list of controversial statements relating to the course material and asks students to choose one. For example, a political science class might have students consider the statements, “Nationalism is incompatible with democracy,” or, “Countries are required to intervene in the domestic affairs of others when there are crimes against humanity being committed.” In the Dr. Jekyll portion, the student assumes the mantle of someone who is a strong proponent of the statement and presents their best arguments in favor of it. In the Mr. Hyde portion, the student then writes from the perspective of someone who is wholly opposed to the statement, giving their strongest arguments against it. In the final portion of the essay, the student offers an analysis of the debate. As the literary Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were two sides of the same person, instructors might encourage students to reflect on the commonalities shared by the opposing sides. What facts, values, and assumptions do both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde agree on? In this way, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde essays go beyond sharpening students’ argumentative skills by encouraging them to think deeply about what is actually animating debates about key subjects.

Nerd Tinder: An activity that has students imagine key concepts and theories from class as people and then create dating profiles for them; may also be used for scholars being studied in class. 

This assignment encourages students to look at what they are studying in a new way and to develop creative, real-world, and (potentially) personally meaningful connections to course material. Its purpose is to help students deepen their understanding of the material by asking them to translate it into a new form and context. Instructors may pose the following questions to students as they build the Tinder profiles:

• If concept X were a person, what would their hobbies be?
• What type of job would concept X hold?
• Where would concept X live?
• How would concept X advertise itself to others?
• What would concept X be looking for in a potential date?
• What would make concept X immediately swipe left (rejecting a potential date)?

As part of the assignment, the instructor may ask students to write a short explanation of the choices they made in their dating profiles. They may also have the class consider all of the dating profiles together and then discuss where the love matches are—or should be.

One-Finger Hands: A way for participants in a discussion to signal that they would like to introduce a different point or idea than the one that is currently being entertained. 

Rather than raising their whole hands when signaling that they would like to speak, participants raise a single finger (usually their index finger). This practice helps to organize discussions and ensure that those who want to directly respond to another’s contribution are given the chance to do so. It aids instructors or other facilitators of the discussion in making fairer decisions about whom to call on next. Moreover, it also requires participants who would like to steer the discussion in a different direction to take ownership of their move. [Also see the entry for two-finger hands.]

Shared Study Guide: A study guide that the class creates together over the course of the semester, with each student being responsible for a certain number of entries. 

While instructors should periodically review the study guide to make sure that students’ entries are accurate and reflect what they want students to learn, they should also encourage students to contribute to it in ways that they believe will help them and their peers. For example, instructors may ask students to add “memory joggers” to terms and concepts, leaving it up to students to determine what will resonate with them and help them recall information. Instructors can provide scaffolding for the shared study guide, listing key topics that it should cover, or they can leave it up to the class to decide what they think is important to include. In the latter case, the instructor should follow the lead of the students when deciding on the material to be covered on tests and assessments. If there is something that the students don’t include on their study guide that the instructor thinks is important, they should discuss that with the students. This affords students agency and ownership of what they are learning.

So What? A question that all good writing must address, either explicitly or implicitly; a way of encouraging writing with purpose. 

Students are accustomed to writing papers for grades and to making arguments to fulfil the requirements for an assignment. But when the motivation for writing is so transactional, it can become alienating. Students dread writing papers because they are held singularly responsible for meeting someone else’s goal. Instructors are then confronted with bloodless, uninspired papers that compound the sense that their job is to give students grades, not teach them.

 The “So What?” question helps to break this model of doubly unsatisfying writing. Instructors who encourage their students to address the “So what?” question in their writing are asking students to find reasons why someone who did not assign the paper and/or is not obligated to read it would nonetheless find it worthwhile to peruse. When that imaginary reader reaches the end of their assignment, they should not be able to say, “Okay, you’ve convinced me of point X. But so what? Why should I care?” They should not be left thinking, “You’ve analyzed X. So what? What does that get me? What does it get you?” 

In anticipating the “So what?” reaction to their writing, students are encouraged to find and define their own goals for the endeavor. Even if they find it hard to move beyond the idea that they are writing to fulfill the requirements for an assignment, the “So What?” question can force them to at least reflect on why their instructor created this assignment. What is so important about what they are doing in their writing that compelled the instructor to assign it? What makes the instructor think that this assignment is an appropriate tool to assess and further their learning? The “So What?” question helps to ensure that students assume and retain authorship on the paper that bears their name; they can’t address it until they have decided what the purpose of the paper is. It also primes students for making arguments in their writing, as they are aware that the paper itself is making an argument for its very existence. 

2 am Thought: A question or idea that someone can ponder when it is 2 am and they are unable to sleep, or a question or idea that is keeping someone up until 2 am. 

Instructors can use the concept of 2 am thoughts to encourage students to move beyond unengaged, passive learning. These questions and ideas don’t have predetermined or “correct” answers, nor do they even have clear endpoints. Instead, they are ideas and questions that are so intriguing, so provocative, and so unsettled that they keep a person’s neurons firing even when they should be asleep. Instructors may offer their 2 am thoughts to students at the end of a class session to prompt students to keep thinking when class is over and then ask students to return with a report of the intellectual journey that the 2 am thoughts inspired. As the semester continues and students become accustomed to the practice of thinking through questions rather than answering them, instructors might have students pose their own 2 am thoughts to the class. Here are some examples of 2 am thoughts inspired by political science topics:

• Is women’s participation in politics ever not gendered? Must women in politics always be women in politics?
• Would the world be a more peaceful place if every country had nuclear weapons?
• Is protest a sign that democracy is working—or that it is failing?

Two-Finger Hands: A way for participants in a discussion to signal that they would like to respond to the person who is currently speaking and/or to add to that speaker’s contribution by offering their thoughts on the same subject. 

Rather than raising their whole hands when they would like to speak, participants raise two fingers (usually their index and middle fingers), indicating that they have something more to say on the current subject. This practice helps to organize discussions and ensure that those who want to directly respond to another’s contribution are given the chance to do so. It aids instructors or other facilitators of the discussion in making fairer decisions about whom to call on next. Moreover, it encourages participants to listen to the current speaker, as those who raise two fingers will be expected to respond to the current speaker or to at least remain focused on the same subject. [Also see the entry for two-finger hands.]

Warm Take: A student’s reflection on a reading or topic that represents their early impressions and invites further discussion; similar to first-draft thoughts but written and submitted as an assignment or discussion-board post. 

Hot takes are reactions, often critical, that are produced quickly and with little critical thought. Warm takes are reactions to course material that have cooled with additional consideration. They are still warm in the sense that students aren’t expected to spend more than 10-15 minutes composing them after reading the course material. Warm takes can still bring the heat, but unlike hot takes, they sole purpose isn’t to be incendiary, meant to entirely burn down what the student is responding to. They are intended to encourage students to go beyond simply reading and taking notes on class material to critically engaging with it. 

Here are some questions that instructors may offer to students who are unsure of what to write about in their warm takes:

• Are there any ideas in the reading or quotes from it that particularly stuck out to you? What are they, and why were they notable?
• What did you find puzzling or unclear? Why?
• Did you see any connections in this reading with other course material and/or events from the real world or your life?
• If you could meet the author in person, what questions would you want to ask them? What would you want to discuss with them further?
• Is there anything the author has overlooked in their argument?
• If you could summarize your reaction to the material in a meme, what would that be? How does the meme encapsulate your thoughts?

Yes, and…? A question that instructors can pose to their students to prompt them to make inferences from what they are learning in class and/or to consider the implications of the ideas under study. 

This question asks students to consider what they, and others, can do with the knowledge they are gaining. “Yes, we now know that X is true, and what might this mean about Y?” “Yes, and how does this play out in the real world?” These questions invite students to think about the applications of what they are learning, especially how knowledge is deployed for additional ends, whether good or bad. 

If instructors do not want to use the question to consider the politics of knowledge, they can still employ it to encourage their students to think of themselves as contributors to their fields of study. In improv, “yes, and…” is a principle that asks participants to accept what someone else has already established and then add to it. In the classroom, “yes, and…” allows students to see themselves as capable of entering someone else’s domain and enriching it with their contributions.