A reader named Karisa Cloward, a school teacher, needs your help. Her dilemma calls to mind earlier blegs about roommates/rent and dividing up a loved one’s earthly goods.
This fall I will be teaching a class on African politics. For the class, each student will be responsible for being the class expert on one African country. There will be about 30 students, and there are more than 50 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, so there are enough countries to go around. I want each student to represent a different country, and I also want to make sure that certain “important” countries will definitely have a representative.
In allocating countries to students, I would like to balance fairness, choice, and speed. The fairest and fastest approach would be for me to just randomly assign my preferred countries to the students, but I want to give them some choice in the matter. I think that students will be more engaged if they are representing a country they already have an interest in. Unfortunately, by introducing choice, I also introduce the possibility that multiple students will want to be the expert for the same country, and there is probably some trade-off between fairness and time in determining which student will actually get that country and which countries the losing students will get. The fairer the process – perhaps something involving multiple rounds of bidding – the more class time will be eaten up.
Does anybody have ideas for a fair and relatively fast way of allocating countries that still gives the students some choice in the matter?
Thanks!
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Just have them list their top three choices, then you assign them based on that. Relatively quick and painless.
Idea…
Assign by random the countries that you really want covered, then allow the rest to be chosen out of hat.
Those who choose out of the hat can, if they wish, exchange their assignment, in the same order that they drew from the hat, for any country that was left over.
THEN…allow the students to bargain among themselves, exchanging assignments, etc.
If someone wants to exchange Ghana and $50 for South Africa…and the holder of South Africa is willing, then go for it. A lesson in negotiation along with Africa might be interesting.
Step 1: Realize that your students don’t care about any country in Africa other than possibly Egypt
Have each student write down their top 3 (or 5 if you think 3 won’t get enough of a range) choices, and email them to you. Then, randomly rank the kids using some method. if you want to use class time, draw names out of a hat. If you don’t want to use up class time, then use a random number generator. (but always be sure the kids see the order so you don’t get accused of favoritism).
Fill in each students choice in order- so that the first student gets their first choice, the second student gets their first choice, and if that already taken, their second, and so on. If you get to a student who has had all of their choices taken, talk to them and ask them to make another choice.
I’ve used this a number of times to allocate presentation dates and as long as students understand how it works, they’re usually happy with the outcome.
Assign them to the students and allow then 20 minutes to make trade with other students if they want.
1. Divide the countries into broad groupings based on attributes such as: rich/poor, colonial affiliation, etc. But not too finely so that you have say 8-10 groups.
2. Student pick from 1 bag randomly a slip of paper with #s 1-30.
3. In order of # on the slip, student gets to select one of the group. Then he/she randomed pick one country in that group. (like picking a card from the bag for his/her chosen group)
4. If there is an important country not chosen at the end, you can offer it as an alternate to a student who don’t like that they picked – most probable that there will be some one displeased initially.
The student will experience choosing some aspects of the country. You can control the process by designing the groupings.
As a teacher myself, I understand the dilemma. A simple solution would be to randomly assign them to a country and allow for trades. Make the assigning a public affair, so that everyone will know who got what country. If a student is interested in a particular country, they will know who it was assigned to. This would take little class time and still allow for those who are more passionate to obtain their country of choice. If some people are unwilling to trade…such is life. Additionally, the main reason I can see for a person to want a particular country is because they have background knowledge and think it will be easier to complete. Perhaps studying another country will broaden their African knowledge more. Hope this helps!
Do like the NFL fantasy drafts. Have some type of contest or raffle, maybe even involving a charity, and then order the students in a draft order based on the winners.
Or you could have a trivia/knowledge contest (possibly about Africa) in which all students must answer, with the students who get the wrong answer getting added to the bottom of the list. Until the last student is left with the first pick. You could also combine with the next project in which the draft order is reversed.