What is it?
The “muddiest point” activity is meant to be a quick exercise where an instructor asks students to jot down the most confusing or difficult to understand part of a lesson, lecture, reading, or other instructional material for a given amount of time. It can be anonymous or identified, and is scalable for synchronous and asynchronous modalities.
This activity does a few things: provides the instructor with a snapshot of understanding and comprehension or misdirection where they might wish to clarify the muddiest point if they’re seeing it crop up in multiples. It can also be an opportunity for students to perform a metacognitive exercise to assess their own understanding of instructional materials.
When to use it?
The “muddiest point” activity can be useful when students are encountering new material and instructors are looking for a formative exercise to assess for understanding, analysis, or evaluation.
Modalities Examples
- In-person, Hybrid, or Blended: At the beginning of class, an instructor can ask students to write down on a sheet of paper one thing they learned from the new material, and one thing about which they are still unsure. The instructor can tell the students the sheet will be collected at the end of class, but they can add to or alter the responses as the class time unfolds. At the end of class, the instructor should ask students to hand in their sheet of paper, and the instructor can review them after class. At the start of the next class or using a Canvas announcement/email/other messaging tool, the instructor can provide a summary and response to some of the muddiest points if a pattern arises.
- Interactive Video: An instructor might ask students to submit an ungraded Canvas survey the night before each class meeting with their “muddiest point” and after the instructor has reviewed the responses they might provide a summary and response via a Canvas announcement/email/other messaging tool. If the instructor is able to review the questions before the next class they could begin with clarifying those questions. This is a good option if the instructor has time to review responses before the next class meeting and allows students to pose questions to the instructor without the pressure of other students knowing what their questions are; however, if the instructor isn’t able to review the questions before class they could provide that summary and responses to questions using a Canvas announcement/email/other messaging tool.
- Virtual Classroom: If an instructor wishes for student questions to remain anonymous, at the start of the meeting time they might ask students to send them a message via the chat with their “muddiest point” articulated. If an instructor would like for students to see each other’s questions, they might ask students to respond with their “muddiest point” using the chat feature in Teams or Zoom. An instructor could also tell students that if they have the same question as someone else they can “like” that student’s chat message. In the moment, or at the start of the next class, or using a Canvas announcement/email/other messaging tool, an instructor could provide a summary and response to some of the muddiest points.
- In-person with streaming capabilities: An instructor might ask students to submit an ungraded Canvas survey the night before each class meeting with their “muddiest point” regardless of whether they are attending the in-person meeting to create equitable opportunities for in-person and remote students. After the instructor has reviewed the responses they might provide a summary and response via a Canvas announcement/email/other messaging tool. If the instructor is able to review the questions before the next class, they could begin with clarifying those questions in-person, but also ensure the response is available to those who are attending remotely via some other communication like a Canvas announcement/email/other messaging tool.
- Online: An instructor might ask students to respond to a Canvas discussion, similar to “Raise Your Hand,” but associated with a week, unit, module, or chapter. This may allow other students to respond to questions and gives the instructor a place to directly reply to questions that may require more nuance than a summary “announcement.” Alternatively, an instructor could post a link to a collaborative document for that week, unit, module, or chapter and ask students to post their “muddiest points” there.