Shuffle & Pick

A structure for groups of four with a deck of question cards and four roles, in four steps. First the class forms fours and everyone takes a letter card: A, B, C or D. This happens in the first rotation only. Then A holds the cards in a fan, questions facing A, and B draws one blind, reads the question out loud and counts to five. Then C answers, while the other three stay silent. Finally D looks at the back, says what was good or adds to it, and sums up what C said. That is one rotation. Then the deck moves one place to the left and the roles move with it; after four rotations everyone has held every role.

Because whoever can read the questions picks the easiest. With the questions facing A, B sees only the backs, and the draw is fair: C does not know which question is coming, and the pile is not eaten from the top. So the fan is not decoration but the rule that keeps the structure honest. Counting to five afterwards belongs to it: that is how C gets thinking time before anyone says anything.

With the default settings the whole structure takes ± 15 minutes: 4 rounds, briefing and look-back included.

A rotation takes two and a half minutes: thirty seconds to draw, read out and count to five, a minute for C's answer and a minute for D to check and add. Four rotations are ten minutes; add two minutes to form fours and take letters, and the rest of the time above goes to the transitions between steps. If the fours are already seated, set the first step to zero. With eight rotations (everyone in every role twice) it is a little over twenty minutes. If you choose one timer per rotation, the time stays the same; only the screen interrupts less often.

One deck per group of four, with the question on the front and the answer on the back. Each rotation uses one card, but count on eight to twelve per deck: B needs something to draw blind from until the last rotation. There are three ways to get them. One: the card generator: type your questions or, with a free account, let the AI write them, eight per A4, fill in the Answer field and print double-sided. Two: the class writes them a lesson earlier, with the answer looked up in the book. Three: a set from the textbook or from flashcards, because the same cards work for both structures. The letter cards A–D are in the free basic kit. If the questions will not come, start from the terms in bold in the section: one card per term, the explanation from the book on the back. Prefer Microsoft Copilot? Ask: ‘Write 8 short questions about [topic] for students aged [age], each with a short answer. One question per line, with the answer after it.’ Put the questions in the Large text box of the card generator and the answers in the Answer box.

Both, in a fixed order. D turns the card over and compares C's answer with the back. Then D first says what was good, then adds what was missing, and finally sums up in one sentence what C said. Adding is not the same as correcting: a D who only says "wrong" is marking, not coaching, and then C learns nothing about what was right. The first time, model one rotation with yourself as D and put the three sentences on the board: "What was good…", "I'd add…", "In short…". Without D the structure is a quiz without marking, which is why the preparation warns you if you set that step to zero.

Make fives from the remainder, in which two students share one letter, not threes. The pair sits as one place at the table and moves as one place, so the letters on the screen stay right, and they do the role together: as C one answers and the other adds, as D one checks and the other sums up. A three gets stuck: a letter is missing in every rotation, and sooner or later someone has to check their own answer. Partnering a student yourself does not work either: then you are playing along and cannot see the rest of the class.

Step by step the first few times, as the preparation is set by default. Every step then has its own timer, and the screen names the letter on turn: that is how the class learns the order. Once the class knows the structure, choose one timer per rotation. The screen then shows the whole rotation with all four letters, and the groups keep the order themselves. The roles, the order and the total time stay the same. If you hear the groups stall at the same role every time, go back to step by step the next lesson.

Three things carry the structure. One: the material beforehand: a deck of eight to twelve cards with answers per group, and letter cards, so the first step takes two minutes and not five. Two: the first rotation. Model D's role, and watch the two places where it goes wrong: the fan that lies open and the thinking time that gets skipped. Three: walking around and listening to D. D's summary is the quickest picture of what a group knows, and the cards D keeps having to add to are your next lesson. The player does the rest: the step, the clock and the letter on turn, and deliberately shows no card, because every group is holding a different question. Close with one of the questions the player suggests at the end, for instance "What did D do that was useful to you?".

The same cards, a different goal. Flashcards is fast and in pairs: A reads out, B answers, right is a won card and a compliment, wrong goes to the bottom, and the pile decides the end: twenty to thirty cards in ten minutes. Shuffle & Pick is slow and in fours: one question per rotation, with thinking time, an answer three people listen to, and someone who checks and adds. Rule of thumb: flashcards for facts that must be ready fast, Shuffle & Pick for material where there is still something to say about the answer. They work well back to back: first the facts, then the explaining.

Who is accountable for the answer. In numbered minds everyone first writes their own answer to your question in silence, then the group confers until everyone can explain it, and only then do you draw one number: that number stands up in every group and answers for the group. In Shuffle & Pick one student at a time answers alone, inside the group, and another checks. Numbered minds makes the group jointly accountable and you hear the answers; Shuffle & Pick has everyone answer for themselves and the group check.

It is Spencer Kagan's Fan-N-Pick, one of the structures from his cooperative learning: one holds the cards in a fan, one draws and reads, one answers, one checks and coaches, and the roles rotate. What makes the structure work in a classroom (the fan facing A, the count to five, D saying what was good first) is recorded here as the player runs it, with the timings that belong to a rotation of two and a half minutes.