Lindemann Chapter 7 - Impromptu Debates

I really enjoyed Lindemann’s chapter 7.  It turns out she and I have similar beliefs as far as teaching goes. Many of her suggestions I was already doing in SI.  I love her idea on impromptu debates! This is something I tacked on to my free writes when I was SI’ing last semester.  I would show my students a video or quote and then they would write for about 5-8 minutes.  After that we’d get in a circle and discuss what we wrote in a safe environment.  This worked EXTREMELY well.  At first the students would only write a few sentences, but by week 6 I was getting two and sometimes three paragraphs from each student.  They told me it helped them with their timed writing for in class essays because they would always get something on the page relatively quick.  The debates after each video/quote would sometimes go longer than expected.  One time the students were so into it that they debated if something with true AI and self-awareness should be respected as a living being or not for nearly the entire class period.