I recently came across the below video and felt it was worth sharing. Using hand signals during group discussions is definitely an interesting idea. Take a look for yourself and then see below for my take on this tactic.

After viewing the video I was left impressed with the overall concept, but I have two major concerns.

First, the video suggests that participants configure their screens so that as many students as possible are visible. Unfortunately, due to large class sizes in many if not most classroom, this will means that participants on the screen are so small their hand signals are unlikely to be noticed. In contexts such as this, using the discussion tools associated with the learning platform is probably a more effective option as they are typically designed with alerts (colours, flashing, pop-ups) which make them more noticeable.

Next, if you are finding that group discussion is regularly leaving learners behind, perhaps you don’t need to add in discussion tools. Maybe what you need to do is switch to an entirely new discussion format. Hand signals are a reasonable accommodation, but we have to stop asking students to fit into the same old box. After all, if it’s not working, why not just change the box? Switch to one on one dialogue and ask students to report back with a few highlights in writing. Or, use a word cloud generator app to solicit written comments and then turn controversial ideas into discussion board content.