Parliamentary Procedure Inquiry Style
I actually love teaching parliamentary procedure.That may be an unpopular opinion but, I think this new inquiry style might make the non-parli-pro-believers turn to love it a little bit more.Check it out!DAY 11️⃣ Confuse the kids by saying Parliamentary Procedure a lot (optional) ⠀2️⃣ Write out the 5W’s and H questions you want kids to answer about Parliamentary Procedure⠀3️⃣ Have students work in groups to research the answers and post their answer on the board with post-it’s⠀4️⃣Review their answers (and include a little parli-pro—-a student volunteers an answer as you review, ask the class “all those in favor say yay, all those opposed no” then give them the answer you want. I had them write out the “official” answers on a note sheet⠀
⠀**ps...if you aren’t 1 to 1 NO WORRIES! Print out an article or two that contains all the answers and place them at each table, that the kids look through those to find the answers**⠀⠀DAY 21️⃣ Watch a quick video about the basics of Parli-pro (I chose a 3 mins section of a longer 4-H Parli-pro video from Oregon 4-H) stop and discuss as needed (we stopped and defined debatable, amendable and majority vote)⠀2️⃣ Show a short clip of a @nationalffa⠀Conduct of Chapter meeting nationals competition (I used 2019 video, start at 7:50 for the first chapter). Discuss how they talk, what their body language is like, how they debated etc.⠀3️⃣ Give them their assignment: they have been approached by the principal to create a demonstration of proper Parli-pro for an upcoming “hot topic” meeting (ex, no homework, early release, open lunches etc). They must address (fill in whatever you want Parli-pro related), talk for a minimum of ___ minutes, and everyone must participate.⠀4️⃣ Go write a script, you’ll perform for the class tomorrow!⠀⠀
That’s it! ⠀⠀Will it be perfect, nope! But are they learning, YES! My student teacher and I even chatted afterward saying they were all so engaged with the struggle on figuring out what and how to say everything. The struggle is where the learning happens, not when we spoon-feed the answers 😊 Honor the struggle and feel the burn! ⠀DAY 3Presentation day!⠀⠀Students got up in front of their peers to present their scripts. It was great! Students (in my opinion) had a better grasp of Parli pro doing this then I have seen my students accomplish in the past. Why?⠀⠀1️⃣ Better debates⠀2️⃣ More buy-in⠀3️⃣ More creative notions⠀⠀🥳⠀Here is a link to the grading sheet I used for the presentations. Very simple, students got points for speaking at least twice and then got scored on the impact of their debates.⠀DAY 4Time to wrap this up with some FOOD. We did a snack class meeting! Here’s whatcha do... (This lesson is from the trail mix parli-pro idea I learned my first year teaching from Allison Jennings in North Carolina)⠀1️⃣ Give each student two ability cards (see below-I made one "debate" card for each student, and then one "other motion/ability" card)⠀
2️⃣ Explain that we will be having a class meeting and the agenda is on the board. We must determine the following: 1. Will we make a snack? 2. What 3 items will be included in the snack? 3. How will the snack be distributed?⠀3️⃣ Students must turn in their ability cards through the meeting and properly pass each agenda item before adjourning OR NO snack⠀4️⃣ You serve as chairperson and help out as needed (we added a few new motions today-question of privilege, division of assembly, and point of order)⠀5️⃣ Enjoy the snacks when the meeting is finished⠀
⠀The kids actually loved it. Saying things that made me believe they had fun! Whoop whoop, that’s a win in the teacher column! ⠀⠀And my kids, who haven’t sat through a PowerPoint on parliamentary procedure did just as well IF NOT better than the years I’ve taught this traditionally with lecture! ⠀