What a great teaching idea!

Woman in black shirt smiling against a brick background.

Mary Byram Washburn

Assistant Professor (Teaching) of Linguistics, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts & Sciences

Mary Byram Washburn, Dornsife, Linguistics Department, shares her "5-Minute Pidgin" activity, a dynamic example of active learning through collaboration and constraint. Students work together to complete a task—building origami hats—without a shared language, simulating a key concept in her introductory linguistics course: pidgin language formation. This playful constrained collaboration activity deepens understanding, builds communication skills, and offers a flexible model instructors can adapt across disciplines.

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