Assignment Spotlight: Wise Words

I love inspirational quotes and words of wisdom, don't you? In today's Assignment Spotlight I'll share a fun assignment idea called Wise Words that gives students to share their own words of wisdom/inspiration with the class. Check it out in today's post. 

Today's highlighted assignment is entitled "Wise Words" and is an idea I got from the awesome site called Teachers Pay Teachers where teachers share and sell their teaching ideas. In this resource there was an activity where the teacher show students a quote and asks them to reflect on its meaning, and share if they agree, and/or how it relates to their life or the world. This reminded me of a practice I use in my online courses. In each module of my courses I include an introduction section that gives an overview of what we will be discussing and I typically end that section with a quote that reflects the ideas of that Module. For instance, in one of my Introduction Modules I use the quote, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" by philosopher Laozi, because it reflects us taking that first step together as a class. 

After reviewing this activity idea, I thought it might be great if students contributed the quotes instead of me providing them for the class. It would be called "Wise Words" and they could create them or they could find a quote from a philosopher or even from one of their assigned readings. 

This activity can take many forms and iterations. Here are a few:

• Students are assigned to share or create a quote: For this option, you can assign a student (or group of students) to submit quote or Wise Words each week or during each Module of your course.
• Students volunteer to to share or create a quote: You can create a sign-up sheet with a tool such as Sign-Up Genius to allow students to sign-up for a date in the semester to share their Wise Words
• Instructor creates a Discussion Forum where students openly share or create a quote: This is a fun option because it allows more students in the class to participate
• Instructor selects quotes from students posts and highlights a different one each week: If you select this idea, I would recommend using a spreadsheet to track who's quote you are sharing so that you are not selecting the same person repeatedly. Also, be sure to ask the student's permission or notify them in advance.
• Vote on a quote for the week: This is an option you can use in conjunction with the Discussion Forum option where students submit their Wise Words and the rest of the class 
• Group quotes: Instead of selecting just one student, you can use all of these above options with class groups. Additionally, you can have a challenge where one group wins the Wise Words challenge during each Module and the group with the most wins at the end of the semester wins the overall challenge.

I'd love to hear your ideas on this assignment. Share them in The Online Educator Facebook Group! 

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