Newsletter #26: Give One, Get One

Are you an introvert? Or an extrovert? Do social situations leave you exhausted or do they charge you and give you energy? I get it: as a visual arts teacher, being asked to perform, speak, or (heaven forbid) dance gives me hives. Not real physical hives, more like psychological hives. I get nervous, and it makes me feel vulnerable.

When we ask students to speak, share, or perform in classrooms, they may feel the same way. Building a safe space for students and establishing norms are the first steps in the act of creating, but practice helps, too.

Give One, Get One, a thinking routine from Project Zero, has a format for engaging all students in conversational exchange, including the socially anxious. Project Zero, a Harvard Graduate School of Education initiative, creates simple, research-based thinking routines which can be used to educate children to think, engage, and participate without fear.

• Set up: Write a question or prompt on the board. This can be a generative brainstorming question, a synopsis, or a reflective answer.
• Process: Ask everyone to come up with an answer to the question. They may write it down or keep it in their head.
• Move: Ask everyone to stand and move around the room. They should wander until a cue is given, and then stop and find a partner.
• Partner up: Ask everyone to share their idea or thought with their partner, then listen to their partner’s ideas. This is the Give One and Get One exchange. It should take 2-3 minutes per exchange.
• Repeat: This part of the routine can be repeated three or four times.
• Share the thinking: Allow students to return to their original starting places to write and reflect on what others have shared. What patterns emerge? What surprised them? Ask students to explain if their thinking has changed with additional information.
• Document the thinking: Have students document their exchange of ideas in a journal or on a piece of paper, or gather ideas in a centralized location, like a whiteboard, so students can see all of the ideas.

Having a format for communicating ideas diffuses the stress of finding one partner with whom to share information. This routine also de-stresses having to share out with a large group. It makes exchange less formidable and gives a voice to those who may feel uncomfortable in social situations.

Who knows? With the Give One, Get One routine even I may feel comfortable performing my Tik Tok dance with a partner… fewer psychological hives, you know? But for the partner… visual hives, permanent retinal damage.