Getting pupils to work together using “The Hat” – Random name/pairs picking software
As a special education teacher, I teach groups who have very poor social skills. One of my responsibilities as a science teacher is to get pupils to work together, both to improve these social skills and their science skills. Problems I face at the start of the lessons include pupils sorting themselves into inappropriate groupings, or pupils moaning “I’m not working with him/her”. I stumbled across this piece of software and decided to give it a go.
The software is freeware and available from here. Installing is a breeze (assuming you have administrative privileges on your computer).
First you enter the names of your groups. You can save lists to reuse at a later date, or temporarily delete names from your list for absent pupils.
The shuffle button is good fun, students can see their names being mixed up, and hitting it again stops the process.
All you have to do then is click on the hat to select names from the list. The dropdown arrow next to the hat gives you the option to select individuals or pick pairs.
The hat comes up and you see (complete with drum roll) names popping out of the hat. The pupils know that these groups are randomly selected and are more accepting of the outcomes.
One of the groups I use the hat with asks at the start of every lesson “Are we picking names from the hat today?” What an excellent way of getting pupils to work together – and it actually works!
Themocracy