The goal of "pitch and catch" is to give students an opportunity to practice in-class and with one another the same activities and skills on which they will be tested in the course.

The basic protocol works like this:

  1. Split the class into teams of 3 persons. Match teams together in A-B pairs. Both teams designate order in which members will play point person.
  2. A question is selected at random.
  3. Team A collaborates for 4 minutes on their response, team B collaborates on checklist for what a good answer will require.
  4. When time is called point person from team A has up to 2 minutes to pitch a solution.
  5. Team B members can ask two clarifying questions after which they score the performance and offer suggestions for how the answer could have been stronger.
  6. Team B scores the suggestions
  7. The team roles switch and the process repeats.
  8. Each time a team is the pitching team, it rotates the pitch person role to another team member.
  9. After 6 iterations, each team member should have played pitch person once.
  10. Teammates then rate one another's overall performance.

Score Scale

Pitch
5 Demonstrates excellence (understanding and expression)
4 Demonstrates solid understanding
3 Suggests familiarity.
2 Suggests lack of understanding
1 Demonstrates lack of understanding
Catch
F I understand it better because of the feedback.
G Good ideas that extended our answer
H Helped us express what we were trying to say
N Nothing added
U Unhelpful, confusing, irrelevant, wrong