"The Circle of Voices IDEA encourages students to participate and engage with one another as they work in groups of four to six to address a given challenge. In this activity, pose a question with multiple answers or interpretations. Within each group, students share their answer or insight into the question. Circle of Voices encourages equal participation and allows every student to express an idea. It has a built-in aspect of elaboration of ideas, which can provide a powerful learning experience that involves building on something that is known by investigating an idea or concept from multiple perspectives.Circle of Voices discussions are useful for encouraging students to brainstorm collaboratively around a course concept or process (Borwn & Paulus, 2002). Generating ideas for additional consideration and discussion at a later time is difficult as individuals often begin to critique options as soon as they are recorded. This instance is problematic because many potential ideas are never considered. The Circle of Voices IDEA encourages groups to identify multiple perspectives prior to discussion. The activity is designed to elicit as many answers or ideas as possible. In addition to fostering participation, this activity encourages students to refer to course materials to generate additional answers." — Teaching for Learning, Major CH, Harris MS, Zakrajsek T, 2016 |