In the midst of the unit on Emotion, I organized the students into two groups, and gave separate instructions to each group. Half went to the hallway (the Outside Condition), where I told them to mimic the hand gestures, body language, and any noticeable verbal ticks on their partner from the Inside Condition while they each exchanged stories. To the Inside condition, I gave the direction: pepper the story that you tell your partner from the Outside condition with unnecessary profanity.
It was my hope that the Inside Condition student would feel a greater affinity for the partner who was mirroring their body language, and that the Outside Condition student would feel less affinity for their partner who was seemingly swearing unnecessarily.
Students certainly seemed to enjoy the 5-minute activity, which was placed about 20-minutes into the 80-minute class period, but I’m just not convinced that it was necessary. After class, I couldn’t help but think of this classic American “learning activity”:
I know I’m pretty critical of learning activities like this… and now I think I just did one with my own students. Fuuu…dge.
Now, it’s possible that they did in fact experience a basic psychological principle … but I’m going to go with: I wasted 5-minutes.