A Hot Seat involves individual or small groups of students answering questions from their classmates about a topic that was covered in class, while they adopt a relevant persona or character, e.g. operations manager in a company, government official explaining a policy, citizen impacted by an event, etc.
Instructions
- Share the topic and personas that will be used in the activity.
- Ask for volunteers from the class to be in the hot seat and assign each a persona.
- Give the remainder of the class a few minutes to think of some open-ended questions to ask the students in the hot seat, then call on students to ask their questions.
Tip
Make sure that you provide the correct answers to any questions that a student in the hot seat may have answered incorrectly, to avoid the risk of confusion.
Resources
- A list of personas to assign to the students
Variations
- Make it a group activity: Break students into groups. Within their group, one student at a time takes a turn at being in the hot seat while the others ask the questions.
- Make it pre-assigned: Present the activity and personas and ask for student volunteers before the day of the activity, allowing them to prepare ahead of time.