As you might have seen, I recently blogged about group work. My students continue to love it. The only problem, I've realized, is that my group work exercises require quite a bit of touching.
I'm not talking about forcing my students to poke one another. I just mean that they are constantly passing papers to one another or manipulating molecular modeling kit parts. I even caught one student using their teeth to pull apart some bonds-- and it wasn't their own model kit!
As I go around to the various groups, I often have to manipulate their models, point to something on their papers, or, worst of all, have to use their pen/pencil to demonstrate something on paper.
Now I can't very well Lysol down my students when they enter my classroom (but oh, wouldn't that be wonderful?), but it's quite challenging to avoid touching my eyes/mouth/nose (without washing my hands first) since I teach for several hours in a row.
Should I resign myself to their germs?
