Reinvigorate Class with New Activities

Whether you’re teaching a course for the first or tenth time, there are always sessions and topics that could use a fresh approach. Use the Active Learning Activities website to quickly and easily find new activities to use in your class. Are any of the following scenarios familiar to you?

Search for the activity name on the Active Learning Activities website to see a full description and implementation ideas for the suggested activities.

The Silent Class

A difficult, but crucial, reading leads to a class meeting where only the star students speak up. You’re pretty sure that some other students have some ideas to contribute but they don’t share in the moment.

Activities to Try

Divide and Conquer

Assign different sections of a reading to pairs or teams. Each team is responsible for “teaching” their peers the key ideas from their section and answering other students’ questions. Ask the students to read and summarize their section. After they all have read the material, have each student read aloud their summary and answer questions.

Think – Pair – Share

Give students should be given a question, concept, or problem and then encouraged to think about it alone for a (short) designated time period. Then pair with another student and discuss. Lastly, the pairs join the large group and discuss their conclusions as a whole.

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Try a group annotation tool like Perusall or Hypothesis to help students map out difficult readings.

Will-it-be-on-the-test?-ers

Several weeks into the course, students are preparing for a major assessment but aren’t making connections between different weeks of material. You know they need to make these connections to be successful on their assessment but they are focused on individual concepts and whether they will “be on the test.”

Activities to Try

Chalk Talk

Write a question in the center of the board and ask half of the class to move up to a portion of the board. Ask for 5 minutes of silence as students write their responses to the question posed. Have the other half of the class draw lines between postings to show connections/differences, ask questions, add to postings, provide examples, etc.

Concept Mapping

Have the students break into small groups and provide a central word, concept, or question around which to build the map. Start with a circle in the middle of the board and include the main idea within, direct students to extend branches out from the central circle.

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Use Miro or Padlet for digital whiteboarding space.

Introverts, Speak Up!

You have several verbose students in the course, who the other students rely on to answer questions and who can dominate class time. How can you make space for other students to contribute?

Activities to Try

Assigned Discussion Leader

One person in the group is asked to present on a topic or review material for the group and then lead the discussion for the group. Assign in advance for large discussions or in the moment after a supportive activity like Think–Pair–Share.

Jigsaw

Divide students into 4-6 person jigsaw groups that match the number of topic segments. Each student from the original jigsaw group temporarily joins a different “expert” group, each of which focuses on becoming familiar with their section of the topic. After clarifying with their expert groups, the students return to their original jigsaw group and teach each other their topic of expertise.

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Chat backchannels can also help students contribute to discussions. Using Canvas Discussions, Teams, Slack, or other chat channels can bypass the dynamics of verbal participation by giving everyone an equal chance to speak while providing anonymity.

Just Here for the Distro

You’re teaching a required course for non-majors and students without a strong background in the area. How can you help them feel a connection to the material and take ownership of their learning?

Activities to Try

K-W-L

This activity helps students activate prior knowledge and link it to new information to make connections with what is already known. Have students complete a KWL chart where they complete the phrases:

What I Know

What I Want to Know

What I Learned

1 Minute Paper

Ask the students to take out a piece of paper and write on a topic. Remind them it is most important that they put their thoughts on paper in their own words, not that they produce a polished piece of writing. Example prompts are:

• A question I have that still needs addressing is…?
• What was the most challenging aspect of today’s activity?
• Was there a position taken in today’s class that you strongly disagreed with? Why?

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Use Google Docs, Padlet, or Canvas Quizzes to collect student responses.