Using Consensus Workshop in the Classroom: Promoting Participation and Collaboration in Large Group Settings

Encouraging engagement when teaching groups of students can prove challenging. Consensus workshop offers a low cost and flexible approach to the facilitation of large group discussions, appropriate with all levels of learners, and across disciplines. Particularly powerful at encouraging student engagement and collaboration in the classroom, it has proven popular with students and academic peers. This article discusses the application of the Consensus Workshop across a range of classroom situations, outlines how to become familiar with the technique, and details the resources required to use the approach.