Classroom Setup During Research Days
As described by Weinstein (2007), the classroom environment and setup has an impact on the way that students learn. Therefore, I changed the desks from the normal classroom arrangement to make it more conducive to student learning. I arranged the desks so that each group of people would be sitting with each other.
I set up a section for Galileo’s camp, the Church’s corner, the jury, the judges, and the bailiffs. Each desk/section had papers with relevant primary sources and documents from these sites. Some of the relevant pieces of information can be found here. I wanted the students to become very familiar with what actually happened during the trial. Some of the students already had their roles and sources created for them. The mock trial guide had some blurbs for other specific witnesses such as Tomasso Caccini and Benedetto Castelli, which the students read to become familiar with them. However, since some of the witnesses were created only for this trial, such as Martin Luther and Nicolaus Copernicus, the students had to find their own information on them and use what we previously learned in class. The lawyers were in charge of overseeing the whole process of their team. Additionally, they had to create opening and closing statements and prepare questions for cross-examination. In order to get the jury members involved during the prep days, each witness was assigned to work with a member of the jury to come up with the questions and answers that they would give at the trial. Finally, the judges, bailiffs, and reporters were to become familiar with the overall case so that they could ensure that things ran smoothly in the courtroom and so they would be able to summarize the information. Because of the limited access to technology, students only had the chance to use laptops on the first of three research days. Nevertheless, they were still able to complete their assignments using the information that they found and that had been given to them in their packets. On the next page, you can see some examples of student work and how they used their research days to come up with appropriate questions and answers for the witnesses and other testimonies.