Engaging Classroom Discussions: The 'Sticks' Technique for Student Participation (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the anyone, anyone, the Great Depression, passed the anyone, anyone, a tariff bill. Okay, so maybe your classroom doesn't look this bad. However, motivating all students to participate in classroom discussions can be challenging. Here's a technique to increase student participation during discussions. It's called sticks. First of all, give a popsicle stick to every student in your class. Then have them write their name on their stick. Collect all the sticks and put them in a cup. At the beginning of a discussion, give the cup to a student. Your students will love you if you give them the cup of sticks. You'll need to train all the students to lay the sticks out in a row and put them in groups of three. Then after you ask a question, say sticks, count the hands already raised, and then have the student with the cup read the first group of names. The students whose names were called from the sticks go first, and then the students that raised their hands go after. Repeat this after each question you ask. Let's go sticks, one, two, three, four. We go sticks, one, two, three. We go sticks, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.