If you don’t know what the ‘popcorn’ activity is, it’s an activity professors use to get everyone to talk in a class. The first person could give an intro of themselves and popcorn (pass it on) to the next person.
Now this isn’t a bad activity at all, but it’s not the best one. I say this because of my name.
I thought shortening my 8-letter name to 4 letters would be easy, but, of course, I was wrong. I understand why people can’t pronounce it, but I wish I didn’t have to be reminded of that every Zoom meeting I attend.
There are three scenarios that always end up happening: someone probably pronounces my name wrong (which again, I understand) or I end up being the last person to speak OR I never end up giving my intro because the host thinks everyone’s spoken. And honestly, I understand why this happens, because I would never want to pronounce someone’s name wrongly. Thus, unconsciously, I would end up popcorning it to the name I can actually pronounce, but since it happens every time, I constantly have to think of it.
I think there are many other ways a professor could use to increase engagement in classes, but this particular activity just constantly has me looking like:
