Ending Jazz, Ideas for Short MysteryQuests

In Jazz this morning, as we were debriefing from the week, the middle school and high school people really wanted to do MysteryQuest in one class period. Their class periods are 55 or 60 minutes. We brainstormed how it could work:

New Schedule

  • 4 groups x 5 min presentations = 20 min. for group presentations
  • 15 minutes for research (can use computers from the start)
  • SKIP the Q&A and re-evaluate to increase the pressure, make it harder, and make it shorter
  • 5 min. sharing guesses
  • 5 min. sharing answers

45 min total with 10 minutes lee-way for technical difficulties and transitions.

Tips for shorter preparation time:

  • all the sections do the same city/country
  • use the same visuals (posters/PowerPoint) for all the sections

Transitions

  • put in the prep materials some tips for making fast transitions
  • know the schedule and have kids up at the mic ready to go
  • when you’re about to present, have some kids taking notes and the others getting ready to go

Whew! What an amazing week of Jazz June 2009. I love this workshop – everyone learns so much! In the words of one of my participants:

I feel very fortunate to be a member of this workshop. It’s like summer camp for adults, and the best part is, our “summer camp” travelled from state to state and overseas! :)

Well, I must say that I was very intimidated by technology in general. At the beginning of this week. I just thought that I would learn about vc and still let the librarian run the vc’s like in the past. Well, I am excited to say that thanks to Janine, I really will set up the vc. Actually, I have about 8 scheduled for next year. Thank you so much Janine for taking away my vc anxiety and introducing me to so many other online things.

You can review the blog reflections and the Flickr photos of this amazing workshop!

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