Ed Cafes are very interesting programs. They allow a variety of topics to be explored which may not have otherwise been taught in class. They also allow more peer to peer learning which is healthy. Less traditional can sometimes work as well or better. However there are some serious drawbacks to these sessions. When there are only three or four time slots available and three or four sessions in each period, one person can only learn three or four things. It really limits the potential ground covered with everyone having researched their own topic. Also, it is problematic when it comes to evaluation. If an ed cafe were used to cover an event such as the Spanish-American War, that would be great and informative. However, if that made up the bulk of the material on the subject, it would be impossible to test students on that subject. This creates an opportunity to not pay much attention with no consequences. Furthermore, there is a lot of room for error with these. Some of the information gathered could be wrong, some may become jumbled, or with a limited amount of time some unjustified conclusions may be reached. This possibly false information is then spread unchecked and may give others a false view of the topic or over-arching subject. Even though ed cafes are unique and can be very helpful, I think all-in-all they are not appropriate for a high school environment in which there is much room for them to not be utilized to their fullest potential.
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