Sample Collaborative Learning Tasks & Activities: Guided Reciprocal Peer Questioning
Guided Reciprocal Peer Questioning
The goal of this activity is to generate discussion among student groups about a specific topic or content area.
- Faculty conducts a brief (10-15 minutes) lecture on a topic or content area. Faculty may assign a reading or written assignment as well.
- Instructor then gives the students a set of generic question stems.
- Students work individually to write their own questions based on the material being covered.
- Students do not have to be able to answer the questions they pose. This activity is designed to force students to think about ideas relevant to the content area.
- Students should use as many question stems as possible.
- Grouped into learning teams, each student offers a question for discussion, using the different stems.
Sample question stems:
- What is the main idea of…?
- What if…?
- How does…affect…?
- What is a new example of…?
- Explain why…?
- Explain how…?
- How does this relate to what I’ve learned before?
- What conclusions can I draw about…?
- What is the difference between… and…?
- How are…and…similar?
- How would I use…to…?
- What are the strengths and weaknesses of…?
- What is the best…and why?
