Student Initiative

Last Friday, I entered my 8 a.m. American literature class prepared with a pop quiz, but as I stepped in they were already divided into their groups, which in this particular room means that they had to move their desks about, and they were already sharing the group prompts I had posted the night before. In short, they were doing their work and showing me that at least most of them had done their reading. This was the active learning I wanted and I didn't have the heart to quiz them. In my traditional classes I would usually see students sitting quietly, yawning, trying to read their assignment at the last minute, or texting on their smartphones when I arrived. This is the kind of evidence that wins over skeptics like me.