Action Research Time!

My action research of pods in the 10th grade classroom has finally been approved! With a few tweaks to fit my school's Exeter style model of discussion, my proposal was finally approved yesterday and I immediately implemented my AR.
While it wasn't a huge shift in how my students already discuss in small groups, I wanted to stress that these groups are permanent for the quarter yet their roles would change. Below is the image on the board that I wrote for my students. These were carefully curated groups with students who bring very different strengths to the table. The reason the "questioner" is starred is because only groups with four students in them will have a questioner.

I gave students a "warm up" question per usual, yet they were instructed to get in their small groups prior to discussing as a class. My initial observations of this exercise was that students took much longer to actually discuss the question, but not much has changed in terms of whole class discussion. I'm elated that this has finally been approved and I'm going to try this attempt again on Monday before a larger and more formal class discussion.