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Description

Think on your feet and become a visiting professor who’s an expert in… well, who knows?

Resources

Chairs
Tables
Stopwatch or phone
Props like notebooks, pens or empty cups (optional)

Instructions

**Before you begin**
This is a great activity to run during an online session. Check out the advice on using Zoom and other popular digital platforms and the guidance on being safe online.
This improvisation game puts people on the spot so they have to think quickly. The person leading the activity should make sure that everyone is comfortable playing the game and understands that there’s no pressure to get anything ‘right’. The aim is to see how much people already know about a topic and what they need to find out.
Most of the group will play university students and one volunteer at a time will play the visiting professor who’ll give a one-minute guest lecture. The person leading the activity should introduce them.

**Welcome, professor**
The person leading the activity should welcome everyone to the meeting and ask for a volunteer to play the professor.
The rest of the group will play the students and sit ready for their lecture.
When everyone’s ready, introduce the visiting professor and read one of the introductions on the Professor statements sheet. The students should applaud and welcome them to the online lecture.
The catch is that the professor doesn’t know what field they’re an expert in until they hear the introduction read out loud, so they’ll have think on their feet and improvise.
The professor should start giving a one-minute ‘lecture’ to the students on the topic they’ve been given while the students listen and take notes.
Use the stopwatch or timer to make sure they stick to one minute. One minute is surprisingly long when you’re put on the spot! If the professor runs out of things to say the person leading the activity can offer a prompt question such as, ‘tell us what you think about using fossil fuels’ or ‘can you say more about moon landings?’
At the end of the presentation, everyone should applaud the visiting professor. Introduce a different professor and a different topic and play again.
Keep going until you run out of volunteers or topics.

**Become a real expert**
After the game, everyone should get into small groups and talk together about the information they gave as professors and heard as students.
You could use a feature like Zoom's breakout rooms for everyone to discuss in smaller groups online. Were they surprised at how much they knew? Do they remember where they got the information from? Did they have to make anything up?
Everyone should agree a topic that they’d like to find out more about, it could be one of the things you’ve already discussed, or something new. Explain that they’ll be taking part in a debate on the topic they’ve chosen.
Assign each group a side of the debate and ask them to come up with a set of five questions to research online.
Groups should plan to find the answers to these questions from reliable websites such as websites ending in gov.uk or ac.uk
Groups should also think about whether news sites, Wikipedia and social media posts are the most accurate sources of information. They should use primary sources if possible, for example, the source of the research or an interview with the researcher or expert. This part of the activity can be done between meetings or at home.
Using the evidence they’ve found online, groups should prepare some notes and take part in the debate.
After the debate, discuss how easy it was to know if the evidence you found online was reliable or not.

Tags

• #forum
• Debate
• learning
• online
• presentation
• research

Badge Links

• Digital Citizen - Debate
• Digital Citizen - Facts vs opinions
• Global Issues - Compare