Although students have usually known each other for some time and attend courses in familiar groups, there are often no answers to spontaneous questions posed by the lecturer to the plenum. Too great is the fear of embarrassment, the apprehension of expressing one's own opinion or the fear of one's own voice in the room. In addition, students quickly become accustomed to the exclusive consumption of information and therefore take on a rather passive role. These unfavourable conditions for a dialogue between teacher and students can be countered with mumble groups.
For marble groups, students are asked to team up with one or two neighbours from the plenary to answer one or two questions. These can either be technical questions or questions whose answers provide feedback on the current status of the students.
Another variation is to discuss controversial questions in groups of marble groups (e.g. one question for half a plenary), so that a discussion of answers and/or points of view can then take place in plenary.
Further links to the method:
