FIPP Activity Report
Name: Michelle Priest
November 18, 2010
Department: Biology
FIPP Partner: Ivan Crosbie
Section#: Biology 10 Section 9056, 9057, & 9058
Activity/Strategy: Hands-up/Stand-up.
Category:
Classroom Environment
Briefly describe the activity/strategy, providing enough detail so that a colleague can replicate
the activity/strategy.
Introduction: In this activity, the students come to class with 5 exam questions (could be definitions,
short answer, process) on a separate sheet of paper. Then, each student is labeled as a ONE or TWO.
Then, the students move from student to student (5 rounds) to ask each other one question and get the
answers. They move by the instructor telling the ONEs they will sit with hands up and wait for a
TWO to come and sit by him/her. Once a ONE has a partner the hand goes down. This process will
identify for the students what they do and don’t know. The desire is that this process will stimulate the
students to understand their strengths and weakness prior to the exam to focus their studying.
Set-up and Supplies: The students supply the questions and all that is necessary is for the faculty
member to simply label each student as a ONE or TWO. The faculty member should allow about 4
minutes each round and then have either the ONEs or TWOs move—and randomize the moving.
Directions: Students come to class with 5 questions they think are good exam questions. Then, I just
assign them to either the ONE or TWO group. I then ask them to pair up a ONE and a TWO. The
group sitting puts their hands up and the group moving looks for a hand in the air to pair up with. This
visual cue works really well at helping the students to pair up quickly. When paired each student asks
one question from each of their question lists to the other. Each person is to answer the other person’s
question. When about 3-4 minutes has passed, or when I notice the conversations starting to wane, I
tell just one of the pair “ONEs moving and TWOs hands up” which means the TWOs stay put and the
ONEs go find a new partner and do the same question/answer again with this new partnership. I do this
about 5 rounds—or until the students tell me they have met with everyone.
Then I debrief them on what were some really great questions, good answers, how it felt to write
questions and how they felt about the process.
What worked well? As this was the second time for a similar system (Eagle/Hawk), the students
wrote much better questions, had better answers and called each other out when the questions were not
up to exam level. Unfortunately, I had some students who didn’t participate very much and I had to
talk to them about the process of group learning.
As before with the Eagle/Hawk process, students had more “Holy Cow!!” moments; they realized that
they were not prepared for the exam. I also had students who openly admitted to finding good study
partners using this technique and have worked very well together for the last 3 nights (we have an
exam in 4 days). Overall, this was a great process…and the visual image of a hand up was easier than
the Eagle/Hawk pairings.
Survey Data: N/A, no surveys were done formally on this technique.
What would you change? I would throw in a few questions to students or have them turn in their
questions ahead of time (on notecards) and then randomly distribute them. This way, students would
get to try the questions from all students—and see how truly hard the process of exam question writing
is. Then, the students could rate the questions and I could re-collect the cards to see what the students
thought where the best questions. I will try this again before Exam #3 in November. 
I did try this variation before Exam #3 and the students loved it and found the process much better. I
also asked students to “star” any question they thought was especially good. The 5 questions with the
most “stars” got a bonus 3 pts to the owner of that question.
Would I use the activity/strategy again? I definitely would. I have used it in my Biology 10 classes
and with the above mentioned adjustments. The adjustments were key!
Please describe any student learning and/or changes that you observed after the implementation
of the activity/strategy. Questions are getting better and students are now finding effective student
groups based on the level of the questions. Students who wished to be challenged chose those students
they perceived to be better students and strong than themselves.