Using Time Toast to Create a Time Line in Class

Hello! 

As the person in charge of equality in my school, I often try to create activities that revolve around it or at least spark some doubts about our preconceptions. Thus, I've used TimeToast to make an activity giving visibility to women scientists adapted for B2.1 level. Before, I used to carry out a similar activity with C1 which involved watching a video, but that was too difficult for the groups I'm teaching this year and TimeToast seemed like a good tool to adapt it.

Below you will find all the details regarding the activity and the resulting timeline.

Activity: A timeline of women in science.

Group: 1º de nivel Intermedio B2.

Grouping: Pairs.

Nº of students: 20.

Materials: One text per couple. One computer with Internet access to use TimeToast.

Development: Every couple is given the biography of a female scientist extracted from Wikipedia (previously selected and shortened by the teacher, who knew about these women thanks to a Youtube video) and they have to find out about her date of birth, her field of expertise and her major achievements. They have to write a short bio blurb and transfer it to TimeToast.

Time: 1 hour.

Skills and content: Reading, taking notes, speaking, use of technology, gender perspective, stories, narrative tenses, cultural referents.

Activity Assessment: My idea of timeline was to form a collaborative one for the whole group because there weren’t enough sockets in the room to allow every couple to have a laptop and I didn’t have time to tell them to bring a computer either. The problem was that students had to take turns to transfer the information and the photos to the timeline, which turned the second part of the activity into something too time-consuming and a bit tedious. The result, however, was really nice and it helped students practice reading techniques such as skimming and looking for relevant information. I hope the topic also contributed to the broadening of their minds.

Now that I’ve corrected all mistakes, I’m going to send the timeline to students by email. The activity was followed by a short guided discussion on inequality in science and technology using it as a prompt. Students reflected on questions such as: How many of these women did you know? Why do you think that is? Should we encourage more women to study science? etc.

This activity could be done on the 11th of February to celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.

TIMELINE: WOMEN IN SCIENCE