Active learning has been shown to have a great number of benefits for student learning. It’s never too late in the semester to begin incorporating these strategies into your course! Before introducing an activity, it is strongly recommended to explain the purpose and benefits of the active learning strategy that will be used and connect it to the learning objectives. The following activities were selected as they can be used in any course regardless of modality (online vs. in-person), discipline, class size, or education level.
- Think-pair-share. You’re probably familiar with this first active learning strategy, but have you considered using it intentionally to break up long lectures, activate background knowledge on a topic, or reflect on learning? Summarized in this short video featuring Dr. Janet Rankin of MIT, the think-pair-share activity allows students to reflect (think) individually before pairing with one to two classmates and share their perspectives. This activity can have many benefits including promoting connection between students, hearing from multiple perspectives on a given topic, and allowing the instructor to circulate around the room to provide support and identify any misconceptions. If using this strategy to review a more complex topic, consider using the think-pair-square-share variation where one pair joins with another pair after their initial conversation before sharing out to the larger group.
- Jigsaw activity. This next activity encourages content mastery and collaborative learning by dividing students into groups to become “experts” on an assigned topic or concept before teaching it their peers. In this way, students are responsible for bringing together different pieces of the puzzle to create a full picture of the content area in question. This is a great way for students to review content before an exam, for example, as each expert group could be responsible for contributing to a collaborative work product or presentation in which each “expert” group shares their learning with others. There are many ways and reasons to facilitate this active learning strategy, and you can learn more about jigsaw activities here.
- Skeletal notes. Have your students expressed that they are not sure which information is most essential to capture during a lecture or reading? Using the active learning approach of skeletal notes can be a helpful way to scaffold students’ understanding of the material by helping them to focus on the concepts and ideas that you want them to remember. This can help promote engagement with the content as the notes may encourage students to reframe the information in their own words. Check out this skeletal notes outline from ACUE’s website to consider how you could create this type of framework to guide students through an upcoming reading or lecture.