Letter salad I Better implementation of seminar content in practice

Putting seminar knowledge into practice better with the letter salad

Seminar participants are usually interested in a topic and pay close attention to it. They process new information and thoughts and store them in their network of experience and knowledge. Only when they succeed in doing this will they later remember well and be able to reproduce what they have learned in their own words.
However, my learning process is only successful if I can transfer and apply the new knowledge well in practice. This is a long process that we as teachers can and should support. With the keyword salad, you encourage participants to memorize and recall the learning content. It's very simple.

Ingredients for the letter salad

After completing a seminar stage, write down the key content of your course in keywords. 10 to 15 terms that have been covered in your seminar up to this point. Mix very central keywords with those that only played a marginal role. Write the terms on an A4 sheet of paper with some space between them. Copy the sheet so that you have a copy for every 3 to 4 people.
Last preparation step: Cut the sheets into small keyword slips. Put the sentences and keywords in an envelope or in a bowl. This creates the keyword salad. Now ask the participants to come together in groups of 3 to 4 people. Each team receives a collection of keywords in the envelope or bowl.

Preparation of the letter salad

The task is easy to explain: "Here in the envelope you will find slips of paper with lots of key words from our course. One person in your group starts. You draw a keyword slip. Read out the term drawn and explain in your own words what comes to mind. Perhaps you can also give an example. The others listen, add to it, ask questions. Then the envelope goes on - until all the keywords have been unpacked. All right?" The method is so simple that the participants quickly get started. And remember and thus perceive and process the content again.
And you? You stand contentedly on the sidelines. You are doing a good job: you have triggered the learning. You can find more teaching methods in the books by Harald Gross.