Information from Anonymity

An interesting takeaway from class today for me was the power of using anonymity to increase the accuracy of information garnered from a group.  This strategy was used by both a micro-teaching team and by our teacher.  In the first instance we were simulating a sixth grade sex education class and the tool was to offer slips of paper that could be filled out anonymously with questions and placed in a box for the teacher to address during the following day's class.  It seems there would still be a glitch in that students might look around and see who is filling out slips and who isn't.  I would solve this by asking everyone in the class to take a slip and write something -- even if it is just "Have a good weekend" -- so that no one feels self-conscious about taking a slip and no one knows who wrote the questions that are discussed in the following class session.  In the second instance our teacher asked us to fill out an anonymous survey about our level of comfort with our preparation to teach various aspects of sex education.  There were ten questions each of which was answered on a scale of one to ten.  She then collected the surveys, mixed them up and redistributed them.  She placed the numbers one through ten on the floor and as each question was read we stood on/near the number reported on the survey (not our own) that we were now holding.  We were able to quickly see how the class was feeling without putting individuals on the spot.  Both were great uses of anonymity to overcome reluctance to honestly share one's opinion or to ask sensitive or embarrassing questions.