When the Supersmash 'Bros' Helped the Class

There’s a group of students in my COMM 1010 class who sit in the back-left side of the classroom. They are all best friends and even live in the same dorm room. In the beginning, I referred to them as the "Dude Bros". This group of 'bros' are high energy and often join discussion in class, however they would often derail the class with different tangents that were off topic. One was about a film that was released the past weekend, another was about a current thing on social media, and one time about what character in super smash bros was the best (I think they ended on Snake? I honestly can't remember). These conversations and points were odd at first because I thought these students were taking advantage of the situation, being hyped by their friends, and having fun derailing the dialogue with a random thought. I was wondering how to fix this situation until I realized that these students were all oranges, active learners, and were good students who did really good online work. I thought to do what Palmer said on making students who speak a lot in the classroom to be your “helper” of sorts and in speaking when the class is silent. However instead of asking this groups of “cool kids” and "bros" directly, I thought to do a little experiment. The next time one of them spoke, I would ask him further on his points and implement it into the dialogue that was happening in class. It was going to be a risk but one I was willing to take!

The next class period was impromptu speeches, introductions, and outlines. I asked the class what would be a good topic for an impromptu speech and like straight from an anime, one of the bros glasses glinted in the light as he dramatically swept them off, standing in a fluid motion with his hand raised in the air yelling out one single word with a grin “Sidewalks!” 

Stunned is not enough to describe how the rest of the peers and myself reacted to this. I kept in mind this little idea I had and asked him “Ok, lets use sidewalks. What would be a good argument for sidewalks?”

Then he explained how sidewalks on campus were too small for groups of friends to walk together and this piqued other students to join in, students that haven’t had spoken yet in class even, to include some more points. From having wider sidewalks would in create less accidents of speeding students on bike with walking students to having more access for students with disabilities. I realize now that what I did was removing my power as the instructor and giving it to the students, allowing them to lead the discussion and create their own outcomes.

Since then, I have asked more open-ended questions in class to allow them to brainstorm out loud. What I thought was going to be a tough situation dealing with a group of trouble students then became one where they frequently help in class discussion. Taking it as a win! #SucksYes!