Voting & Groups

Initial situation

For this course, the teacher’s plan was to have groups of three students produce a policy memo, a professional written report to assist in decision-making, and an individual memo. He did not want to form the groups in advance and wanted to give the students the freedom to choose the issues that interest them most in the current world situation. The course was a great success, with over 120 students enrolling. It was a difficult discussion with such a large number of students to form groups and choose themes. The main challenge was to identify a list of themes with at least 3 students for each.

Project implementation

To meet this challenge, the teacher used the Text-tag cloud function available on the Pingo online voting system. This function gives each student the possibility to introduce 2 words or expressions according to the following criteria: to give a topical subject that deserves the action of a decision-maker and a geographical location (e.g., “Amazon deforestation”). All the words given by the students are displayed on the screen of the room in the form of a cloud (the words quoted several times are larger) and, if desired, in the form of a table with the number of occurrences for each word. During the first vote, the themes chosen by a minimum of 3 students are retained after the students concerned have explained what they put behind their pair of words. Before launching the 2e vote, the teacher asks the students who have not chosen a theme to argue in favour of their subject. About ten students speak up. Three votes will be necessary to determine, in 2018, the 20 themes treated by more than 40 groups.

After the groups have been formed, the students write their individual policy memos as a first step. To do so, they have a guide on what a policy memo is, and another presenting the learning objectives. In addition, since 2019, students have had access to tutorial videos produced by the teaching staff on how to write a policy memo. They must assume the role of a professional; the idea being that the policy memo is at the heart of the beginning of a career. One week after the submission of the individual policy memo, students also receive individual feedback on their writing and have the opportunity to request a one-on-one meeting at the proposed office. During these feedback sessions, the teaching team not only shares its appreciation of the individual policy memos but also discusses the particular and important points of the collective policy memo. In groups of three with peers who have worked on the same topic, students write a collective policy memo in which they articulate their positions.

The evaluation of the course is based on the individual and collective policy memos, for which students receive a mark of 40% before the final written exam. The 2-hour final exam consists of short questions on important theoretical elements of the course that would not be covered in a policy memo.

Thoughts and advice on implementing a similar project

The teacher noted that group formation in class had two effects on learning: argumentation and categorization. First, students who had to choose topics that were less chosen by others had to argue well to attract peers to form a group with them. The 2e important learning relates to categorization. Some words or expressions did not completely overlap. After the students had clarified the meaning of these words and expressions, it became clear that there was room to define a common object of work.

eOf course, one advantage is that we were able to divide 130 students into 40 groups in the 2e session of the course, something that fill-in-the-blank materials given to students would not have been able to do so quickly.

To succeed in this exercise, it is advisable to prepare an ad hoc support (2e screen, blackboard or whiteboard) on which to write in a legible way all the themes selected during the voting.

Use on Pingo the possibility to enter 2 options to facilitate the reading of the cloud.

Regarding the policy memo, the teacher emphasized that this writing format is at the heart of the beginning of a career and that it is essential to train students to write it. The logic behind a policy memo is the same as that of a research paper: one must define why the issue is important, the key parameters, and the options for decision making.

Student feedback

“Without a doubt, the biggest asset is having introduced learning about policy briefs.”

“The policy brief is a very good piece of work, relevant to the framework of the course and interesting in that it allows for a fair amount of leeway in choosing the topic.”

“The Policy Brief was a very good experience although the group work was not easy to get the different people to agree.”

“The course leads us to work in a more practical way vis-à-vis the other courses. This is especially thanks to the policy memo format which is really interesting and gives me for the first time an idea of what we can do in a workplace like an IO or an NGO.”

“The video tutorial for the policy memo is excellent. It is one of the best tools I have had to help me complete a written assignment. The support and explanations for the assignment are clear. The Moodle platform totally lends itself to the idea of the assignment and the course in general. The Mini-moocs are also very accurate and in my opinion are a great option for course replacement.”