Classroom Activities to Enhance Learning
In-Class Activities for Courses in Humanities Structured group presentations Dialogical writing assignments Debate Peer review
In-Class Activities for Technical Courses Problem Solving Applications Large interactive group, collaborative groups at boards or at desks Interactive Lecturing (instructor talks with periodic pauses for structured activities) Effective Questioning – Promote Deeper thinking Case studies of effective projects or failures Think, Pair, Share to promote discussion
In-Class Activities for Technical Courses Learn by Teaching, small groups or at boards Student generated exam questions Question of the Day Exercise Demonstrations/ in class labs Games – Jeopardy Muddiest Point, Minute Paper, Reflection Paper Student-to-student talk encouraged Film/ video of the day
Obstacles: Cannot cover as much material Takes too much preparation Student resistance to being exposed I’m less in control of the class
The Pause – and Wait Time Consider frequent pauses – One procedure recommends the instructor pausing for approximately two minutes on three occasions during a fifty-minute lecture (i.e., every minutes). During the pauses, students work in pairs to discuss and rework their notes without instructor-student interaction. Wait time ‖-- is a term used to describe the interval of silence after a teacher‘s question and the start of a student‘s reply.