This week, the Adams Center hosted a session highlighting ways to incorporate active learning into our current physically distanced classrooms. Here is a summary of the ideas shared:
- Use a google form as an entrance or exit ticket. Upon entering class, a quick google form can engage students with a couple of quick questions. A google form as an exit ticket can provide good insight into student learning that day.
- Use an in class discussion utilizing smaller groups of students. This can be accomplished using a google doc, but also works well using this slide template. Using google slides keeps each group on their own slide lessening the potential clutter of a lengthy google doc. Assign groups prior to class using this color coded slide.
- Post-its on Post-its! Create categories or questions on large Post-its and hang them around the room. Provide small, square Post-its to students. Students respond to the categories or questions on the large Post-its then carefully move to each large Post-it to add their small Post-it. Depending on the size of the class, you may need multiple large Post-its of the same question/category to help students maintain physical distance. If possible, allow a student to assist with categorizing responses and summarizing the findings with the class.
- Four corners from your seat: Provide students with quarter sheets of paper in four different colors. Assign each color with one of the following categories: strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree. Pose a question or scenario and ask students to hold up the color of paper that shows their response. If possible, ask various students to share why they answered as they did.
- Use the peer review feature in Canvas. Check out this video tutorial for how to set up peer reviews.
- Open a discussion in Canvas, but project the discussion on the screen in the class so students’ responses are visible up front. Discussions that use a lot of text are challenging to do in class like this, but discussions in which students add an image or short phrase are perfect. Images or short phrases in a discussion thread can be quickly viewed and provide a way for the entire class to contribute.
- Plickers is a low tech clicker system. By signing up at plickers.com and adding the Plickers app to your phone, you can print a simplistic QR code for each student. The QR code has four sides labeled A, B, C, D. The unique student QR codes allow the instructor to pose a question through plickers.com and students “answer” by holding up their QR code in the direction of the answer they think is correct. The instructor then uses their phone camera in the plickers app to scan the room. The site then quickly creates a graph based on student responses.
- Create a quick response activity with a future action. Provide time for students to respond to something in the class that is timely with a quick write in a journal. Then ask students to pull out their phones and set an alarm or reminder for a future action based on their response.
- Use Canvas groups in class. In a large class where it would be difficult to move around, use Canvas groups. In these smaller groups, students can work on a shared google doc.
- Depending on your space, students might be able to pair and share with one other person six feet apart.
- Kahoot is a game based learning platform that makes it easy to create, share, and play learning games and quizzes in minutes.
- Use a KWL chart. K=what I KNOW, W=what I WANT to know, L=what I LEARNED. This can be done individually or on large Post-its. Ask students to answer what they know and what they want to know prior to new material and then they can add what they learned at the end of class.