Qu'est-ce que c'est "un cohort?"

Cohorts

A cohort is a group of 6-7 students, a mix of male-female, international-domestic and when know-able, extroverted-introverted personality types. Cohorts are assembled from all the different sections and will be grouped together all year, both in academic settings and on camping/field trips so the students get very used to working with each other. Today I had an opportunity to observe a cohort in an academic setting.

Name cards were provided so that the students had no trouble remembering each others’ names. They got seated in their small groups and set to work on a structured task, based on the previous night’s homework assignment.

• Students took turns reporting their responses to a set of three questions and other members of the group took notes on what was being said. This kept all the students active and gave each a turn to speak.
• When they’d finished this, the students were then asked to divide the responses they’d heard into three categories.
• The teachers circulated and answered questions.

Students made excellent observations like, “Democracy consults the general will” and “Civil rights are granted by the Constitution” and they asked great questions like:

“Where do Human Rights come from?”
“How would you discover that?”
“What if you’re an escaped convict on the loose?”

I heard great discussions on-going for a good 25 minutes—all the way up until 5 minutes before lunch. It doesn’t get much better than that.