How to run a “Back to School Jam”

The summer is coming to an end.

Your students just spent weeks cultivating their own interests, and now they are excited to reunite with their friends - and get to know a lot of new people.

Now is the perfect time to invite them to be curious together!

With a Back to School Jam, you help your students:

• Tune (back) in on each other

• Share their summer experiences

• Warm up to a new school year

Here’s a step-by-step guide for how to run a Back to School Jam :

Preparation:

Step 1: Sign up for a free Question Jam account (if you don’t have one already)

Step 2: Run a test jam with a few colleagues, friends or family members

Step 3: Pick a Jam topic that works for you and your class, e.g.:

“Favorite summer moments” (if you want your students to share their favorite memories).

“Making this the best school year ever” (if you want your students to focus on the year to come).

“Expectations to [topic]” (if you want everyone to tune in on the topic you’re teaching).

“Great study habits” (if you want students to knowledge-share about study habits

Question Jam session in class:

Step 4: Prepare your students by introducing the purpose and the topic of your Back to School Jam. Tell your students that a Question Jam is a game about being curious together - there are no stupid questions and no wrong answers. See how an English teacher in Ethiopia prepares her students before running a Jam.

Step 5: Enter your topic to generate your jam, and ask your students to join the 7 minute game

Step 6: After the jam, facilitate a group discussion on the experience and the insights the students generated. You can use the auto-generated word cloud to explore and discuss the questions and answers with your students.

That’s it!

Happy new school year - and happy jamming 💙