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Today a section from a technique you might describe as a 'fundamental': The Do Now. The best part of it, to me, is the examples (see below). One key thing to remember with a Do Now is the speedy review. When I see Do Nows go wrong it's most often because a teacher loses track of time and reviews for 15 minutes- thereby unintentionally turning the Do Now into the lesson and leaving the lesson truncated and shoe-horned into a space where it can never fit. The result of THAT is usually a dearth of independent practice-arguably the most important part of a lesson. So my advice is to run a stop watch and keep the review of the Do Now to five minutes max. THAT means practicing the art of selective neglect-wherein choosing what NOT to review is as important as choosing what TO review.
The first step in a great lesson is a "Do Now"- a short activity that you have written on the board or that is waiting for students as they enter. It often starts working before you do. While you are greeting students at the door, or finding that stack of copies, or erasing the mark-ups you made to your overhead from the last lesson, students should already be busy, via the Do Now with scholarly work that prepares them to succeed. In fact, students entering your room should never have to ask themselves, "What am I supposed to be doing?" That much should go without saying. The habits of a good classroom should answer, "You should be doing the Do Now, because we always start with the Do Now."

An effective Do Now should conform to four critical criteria to ensure that it remains focused, efficient, and effective:

1. The Do Now should be in the same place every day so taking it and getting started is the habit of all your students. The options for where it goes: 1) You can write it on the Board- ideally in the same place everyday or post it on a piece of newsprint having written it in advance.2) You can put it in writing on a sheet of paper or as the first page in a packet for the day's lesson(see technique #19, Double Plan). You'd then either leave the Do Nows in a stack on a table or desk just inside the door and that students take as soon as they enter or place a Do Now on each student's desk before they enter. (I tend to see this one most at the elementary school level)

2. Students should be able to complete the Do Now without any direction from the teacher, without any discussion with their classmates and in most cases without any other materials save what you provide. So if the Do Now is to write a sentence interpreting a primary source document that is an 19th century Punch cartoon, that cartoon should be posted somewhere easily visible to all or else copied into the Do Now packet. This by the way his a significant benefit to paper-based Do Nows and probably explains why over the past four years I've seen more and more of them-and fewer DO Nows on the Board-in top teachers' classrooms. Some teachers misunderstand the purpose of the Do Now and use a version of the technique that requires them to explain to their students what to do and how to do it: "Okay, class, you can see that the Do Now this morning asks you to solve some typical problems using area. Remember that to solve area problems, you have to multiply." This defeats the purpose of establishing a self-managed habit of productive work. If you have to give directions, it's not independent enough.

3. The activity should take three to five minutes to complete and should require putting a pencil to paper, that is, there should be a written product from it. This not only makes it more rigorous and more engaging, but it allows you to better hold students accountable for doing it since you can clearly see whether they are (and they can see that you can see). And of course this allows you to Check for Understanding (see part 1) while they work, deciding, as I observed Taryn Pritchard do in a recent lesson, which questions to review and possibly who to call on for a quality answer or a common mistake.

4. The activity should generally 1) preview the day's lesson (you are reading The Jacket, and the Do Now asks students to write three sentences about what they'd do if they thought someone stole their little brother's favorite jacket) or 2) review a recent lesson (you want your kids to practice all of the standards they've mastered recently so they don't forget them).

Here's a gallery of Do Nows below plus a few notes on each.

The formatting was tricky so the Do Nows are in the attached PDF but you definitely want to open it. And to intrigue you, here's an index of the samples:
Do Now #1 This is a good example of a teacher using the Do Now to reinforce a wide array of skills the class has mastered over the course of the year in math The goal here is to keep those skills 'alive and kicking.' (Often students initially master skills only to forget them when they stop using them so this kind of shuffle practice can be helpful. Do Now #2 This Do Now emphasizes critical thinking a bit more than the straightforward review in the previous example. It's also more open-ended. This emphasizes student writing but also makes about twice as long to complete. And review-meaning more choices about what to review-and score. Do Now #3 This Do Now is forward-looking. Rather than reviewing previously mastered skils, it's designed to anticipate the discussion in the coming lesson and build context and insight. It includes a block of text for reading and both multiple choice and open response questions. My guess, given the density and challenge of the text, is that it took more than the usual five minutes to complete. If you were inclined to be a little more cautions in this regard you might give students just the first paragraph in the Do Now and the rest in the heart of the lesson. Do Now #4 This Do Now is a "reading check" on Elie Wiesel's Night, the using it to make sure students have done the reading in preparation for class. It's less common for teachers to use the Do Now in this way but if you have a vibrant culture it can be done. It certainly makes sure that you are set up for a successful lesson to create a strong incentive for doing the reading. Interesting to note that even on a quiz there's still a challenge question for those who want to push themselves. There's also a task for when students are done.
Thanks as always to Joaquin Hernandez for helping me put this together. Wait til you see his Plug and Play!!

Do Now, resources

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The Do Now: A Primer - Teach Like a Champion

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Interactive teaching is all about instructing the students in a way they are actively involved with their learning process. There are different ways to create an involvement like this. Most of the time it's through

teacher-student interaction

student-student interaction

the use of audio, visuals, video

hands-on demonstrations and exercises

You encourage your students to be active members of your class, thinking on their own, using their brains, resulting in long-term memory retention. Not only the students' knowledge will improve, but their interest, strength, knowledge, team spirit and freedom of expression will increase as well.

In this blog post, I will talk about the use of interactive methods for teaching, encouraging more dedication towards the lesson material. We will see some interactive teaching tools, interactive teaching ideas, and interactive teaching games.
Not only will I talk about the use of interactive methods of teaching, but I'll also give you some examples of methods used in the present classroom as well.

Ready? Let's find out some interactive classroom activities to engage your pupils!

3 Effective interactive teaching strategies to encourage speech in your classroom

First, I want to put some activities in the spotlight. The following interactive student activities are three of the most effective ways to encourage more speech in your classroom.

1. Think, pair and share

Set a problem or a question around a certain topic, and pair up your students. Give each pair of students enough time so they can reach a proper conclusion, and permit the kids to share their conclusion in their voice. This way your students will be engaged, communicating, and remember more of the class than ever before.

2. Brainstorming

Interactive brainstorming is mostly performed in group sessions. The process is useful for generating creative thoughts and ideas. Brainstorming helps students learn to work together, and above all, learn from each other. You'll be surprised by all the great ideas they come up with! Check out these 8 fun brainstorming apps you can use in your classroom, or use BookWidgets' Mindmap widget to structure thinking.

3. Buzz session

Participants come together in session groups that focus on a single topic. Within each group, every student contributes thoughts and ideas. Encourage discussion and collaboration among the students within each group. Everyone should learn from each other's input and experiences. As a teacher, you could give your students some keywords to spark the conversation.

Of course, there are many other interactive teaching ideas as well. I split up the activities in different categories:

Individual student activities

Student pair activities

Student group activities

Interactive game activities

Individual student activities

4. Exit slips

These are best used at the end of the class session. You'll ask the students to write for one minute on a specific question. It might be generalized to "what was the most important thing you learned today". Then, you can decide if you are going to open up a conversation about it in your next class. You can ask them if they still remember what they wrote down. Need a digital exit slip template? Try this one from BookWidgets and learn more about the possibilities of an exit slip. Looking for inspiration? Check this out! You will find 60 examples of digital exit tickets.

5. Misconception check

Discover students' misconceptions. See if students can identify what is the correct answer when given a false fact. It's useful when going over a previous lesson. It encourages students to think deeply and wager all the possibilities.

6. Circle the questions

Make a worksheet or a survey that has a list of questions (make them specific) about your topic, and ask students to circle (or check) the ones they don't know the answers to. Then, let them turn in the paper.

Create corners concerning different questions that were circled. Let your students work on the extra exercises and explanation in the corners, individually. As your students will all have circled different questions, you have to give each student a different and personalized order to visit the corners.

7. Ask the winner

Ask students to silently solve a problem on the board. After revealing the answer, instruct those who got it right to raise their hands (and keep them raised). Then, all other students have to talk to someone with a raised hand to better understand the question and how to solve it next time.

Student pair activities

8. Pair-share-repeat

After a Think-pair-share experience, which I've written about in the first interactive learning lesson idea, you can also ask students to find a new partner and share the wisdom of the old partnership to this new partner.

9. Teacher and student

Let students brainstorm the main points of the last lesson. Then, pair up your students and assign them 2 roles. One of them is the teacher, and the other the student. The teacher's job is to sketch the main points, while the student's job is to cross off points on his list as they are mentioned and come up with 2 to 3 points that the teacher missed.

10. Wisdom from another

After an individual brainstorm or creative activity, pair students to share their results. Then, call for volunteers who found their partner's work to be interesting or exemplary. Students are often more willing to share the work of fellow students publicly than their work. Of course, you can always encourage sharing their objectives as well.

11. Forced debate

Let students debate in pairs. Students must defend the opposite side of their personal opinion. It encourages them to step away from their own beliefs and teaches them to look through a different colored glass once in a while.

Variation: one half of the class takes one position, the other half takes the other position. Students line up and face each other. Each student may only speak once so that all students on both sides can engage the issue.

12. Optimist/Pessimist

In pairs, students take opposite emotional sides of a case study, statement, or topic. Encourage them to be empathic and truly "live" the case study. You'll discover some good solution proposals and your students will learn some exceptional social skills.

13. Peer review writing task

To assist students with a writing assignment, encourage them to exchange drafts with a partner. The partner reads the essay and writes a three-paragraph response: the first paragraph outlines the strengths of the essay, the second paragraph discusses the essay's problems, and the third paragraph is a description of what the partner would focus on in revision if it were her essay. Students can learn a lot from each other and themselves as well! Here are 10 more creative self-assessment ideas.

Student group activities

14. Board rotation

This interactive learning strategy is even more interactive than others! Divide your class into different groups of students and assign them to each of the boards you've set up in the room. Assign one topic/question per board. After each group writes an answer, they rotate to the next board. Here, they write their answer below the first answer of the previous group. Let them go around the room until all the groups have covered all the boards. Not that many boards in your classroom? Try using tablets and BookWidgets' interactive whiteboard.

15. Pick the Winner

Divide the class into groups and let them work on the same topic/problem. Let them record an answer/strategy on paper or digitally. Then, ask the groups to switch with a nearby group and let them evaluate their answer. After a few minutes, allow each set of groups to merge and ask them to select the best answer from the two choices, which will be presented to the complete class.

16. Movie Application

In groups, students discuss examples of movies that made use of a concept or event discussed in class, trying to identify at least one way the movie makers got it right, and one way they got it wrong. Think about movies showing historical facts, geographical facts, biographies of famous people, ...

Interactive game activities

Create an interactive classroom full of interactive learning games. Games are so much fun for students since it doesn't feel like learning. With BookWidgets, you can make interactive learning games like crossword puzzles, pair matching games, bingo games, jigsaw puzzles, memory games, and many more in minutes (and there's a Google Classroom integration as well).

17. Crossword puzzle

The crossword game is perfect to use as repetition activity. Choose a list of words and their description, and BookWidgets creates an interactive crossword for you. The crossword game transforms these boring lessons into a fun experience. Here you can read more about how to create them and for which topics you can use them (not only for teaching languages)!

18. Scrabble

Use the chapter (or course) title as the pool of letters from which to make words (e.g., mitochondrial DNA), and allow teams to brainstorm as many words relevant to the topic as possible. You can also actually play scrabble and ask students to form words from the newly learned vocabulary.

19. Who/what am I?

Tape a term or name on the back of each student. You can also tape it on their forehead. Each student walks around the room, asking "yes or no" questions to the other students in an effort to guess the term. Of course, the term has something to do with your lesson topic.

20. Bingo

Bingo is a fun game that can be used for all sorts of exercises: language exercises, introductory games, math exercises, etc. Take a look at this blog post with all the different bingo possibilities here. You'll be surprised about how many interactive lesson activities you can do with just one game.

Want to create a bingo game yourself? You can start for free right here:

Wrap up

That's it! Like in any list, you could add many other interactive lesson ideas. I could go on for quite a while myself. But what about you? Share your creative, interactive classroom ideas in our Facebook Group. This way, we can build out this article with many more great ideas!

One more thing... Don't forget to follow us on Twitter! 😉

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20 interactive teaching activities for in the interactive classroom

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Interactive teaching is all about instructing the students in a way they are actively involved with their learning process. There are different ways to create an involvement like this.

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At long last, the unit you were teaching has come to a close. Now what?

Organizer extraordinaire Marie Kondo looks at closure this way:

" Have gratitude for the things you're discarding. By giving gratitude, you're giving closure to the relationship with that object, and by doing so, it becomes a lot easier to let go."

Now, your students may not be mourning the end of your algebra unit, but when viewing the above quote through a teaching and learning lens, you can definitely focus on the gratitude part.

Providing closure on a topic is similar to placing a special value or gratitude on the subject. Much like a beloved but no longer needed piece of clothing, a lesson has value and leads to something better (like how those pleather pants served their purpose and have now helped you to evolve to another style!).

Closure can, and should, happen in classrooms, too. Wrap-up activities will tie up learned concepts in a neat bow (hopefully!) while solidifying knowledge and naturally leading to the next related topic. Teachers value these wrap-up activities because they are perfect ways to check for understanding (and any misunderstanding) as well as summarize important info. Students will appreciate these activities because the transition to the next topic won't be as abrupt.

How do we incorporate these wrap-up activities into our teaching? Check out these 15 suggestions to get you started.

15 fun closing activities for groups

1. Dramatization

Have students - either in a group or individually - dramatize a section of they learned. For example, if you studied a particular novel or the works of an author, students can develop short skits to bring a piece of the story to life. This can be easily applied to history lessons as well, and your students will have a blast doing it.

2. Jeopardy-style game

Reinforce learning through the use of a few rounds of a Jeopardy-style game based on information from the topic at hand. Generate the content online and share on a smart board. If you don't have access to a smart board or similar tech, construction paper on a blackboard can work, too (with clues hidden under a second layer of paper).

3. Trivia cards

With this Jeopardy twist, students can create their own trivia cards and then take turns playing the game with a fellow student. The bonus here is that students will be cementing their learning while creating the cards, and then they'll solidify that even further when playing trivia with a partner!

4. Gallery walk

Students can put their own unique flair into a poster board with highlights from the concept that they learned. Posters can focus on a particular section of the concept (if it's sufficiently large) or demonstrate their understanding of the concept as a whole. Much like the trivia game, this activity allows students to get double the benefit as they assemble their own posters and then participate in a gallery walk to view their peers' work.

5. Exit slips

Tried-and-true exit slips work wonderfully for a quick wrap-up activity. Perhaps students will write two sentences about what they learned today, or you can have them respond to a specific thought-provoking question about what you taught. Either way, exit slips are a quick and easy solution.

6. Pass the knowledge down

Learning by teaching is an effective way to reinforce your understanding of a concept. If possible, have your students teach the concept to other students in a lower grade. This will give your students confidence in the topic and allow them to look at it from a different perspective. For example, their "student" might have questions that force your student to think more deeply. Looking back at my restaurant job days, for example, I never felt like a better server than when I was training a new hire!

7. Think-pair-shares

Another solid contender is the think-pair-share. This activity gets students talking to each other about the concept you're wrapping up, even allowing for the sharing of new perspectives. Have your students spend a few silent minutes thinking about an aspect of the topic you learned (or the topic as a whole), and then pair them with other students to discuss any relevant angles, pros and cons, or strategies.

8. Slide presentation

Allow your students to flex their creative muscles by developing slide presentations that highlight key points from the topic. This is another two-in-one activity: Students will solidify their learning not only when they create their presentation but also when they watch their peers present. Consider using slides after conducting an experiment to show the results with graphs or a series of documenting pictures.

9. Expert talks

When wrapping up a topic, consider having students conduct their very own lectures. Have them zero in on a specific aspect of the lesson, give them some prep time, and then let them each hold a two-minute talk on their newfound expertise.

10. Sell it

Students can videotape (or present live) some quick advertisements related to the topic you're wrapping up. For example, if your class learned strategies for division in math class, have them choose a particular strategy to promote in a 30-second ad. If they learned about types of trees in science, have them sell the heck out of their favorite deciduous pal ... Why exactly is the blue spruce superior to all the others? Find out from your students!

11. The artist

Wrap up a series of lessons by having students create a related piece of art. Collages work well for this, but also consider other types of visual representations - perhaps an interpretive, abstract painting to capture the feeling of a historical revolution? Maybe your students have been learning about classical music and you have them paint or draw freely while listening to a piece and see what you get? This can have surprisingly fascinating results!

12. Model behavior

Piggybacking on the art installation suggestion, dioramas and models are fabulous wrap-up activities. Students can piece together their own historically accurate 18th-century fort or village. Or, in science class, they can create awesome models of body parts such as the eye or heart. These are fun activities that bring together the learned concepts.

13. In other news ...

Students can prepare short newscasts about a topic. Have them sit facing the class at a desk - with a small stack of notes in hand and maybe even a suit jacket - to deliver a special report. They could cover an environmental issue, a current or past exciting scientific discovery, or present on a historical event as if it happened that day.

14. Represent

Have students physically represent a concept, either in small groups or as a whole class. This works best with science or math topics, in my experience, but if you can apply it to other subjects, go for it! Students can act out division, photosynthesis, the water cycle, etc. This will allow your class to see and also participate in a literal rendition of the topic they learned.

15. Gamify

Classcraft can help you out with wrap-up activities, too. Students can play an immersive game that can bring a topic home for them. Classcraft's Random Events are often used as opening activities but can also be effectively used as closing activities. Customize your own Random Event around the topic or class at hand, and have your students participate as teams in a fast-paced, exciting game to wrap up and celebrate the latest lessons learned. The options are endless here!

Solidify your students' learning

The wrap-up activities listed above are fairly celebratory in nature, tying into the concept of gratitude for a topic. Both students and teachers alike should feel a sense of celebration and closure when wrapping up one idea or topic and moving on to the next. These will be memorable experiences for your students, allowing them to solidify their learning and transition more smoothly to the next piece of the puzzle.

That's a wrap!
Photo: Google Edu

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15 awesome wrap-up activities for students - Classcraft Blog

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At long last, the unit you were teaching has come to a close. Now what? Organizer extraordinaire Marie Kondo looks at closure this way: " Have gratitude for the things you're discarding. By giving gratitude, you're giving closure to the relationship with that object, and by doing so, it becomes a lot easier to let go."

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18 Warm-Up Activities to Engage Students Before They Read Nonfiction Texts (Published 2021)

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Here is a collection of our favorite “bell ringers,” “do nows” and “hooks” to grab students’ attention, along with examples from dozens of our daily lessons.

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Engagement inside the classroom helps students learn and not just memorize. Explore 25 interactive classroom activities you could try with your students.

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Ever looked at your classroom clock or heard the bell ring and realized you did not have time to close up the lesson plan the way you really wanted to? Lesson closures are just as important as the lesson hooks we use to get kids excited about learning, but it's not always easy to wrap up a lesson! That's why the expert teachers on the Teach Starter team pulled together some creative ways to close a lesson and some wrap-up activities for your students!

What Is a Lesson Closure?

Sure, you might know this already, but stick with us for just a second. We promise this will be good! A lesson closure is a way to end a lesson, of course, but it's more than just closing the book or putting a pin in the proverbial balloon.

A good lesson closure reviews what you've covered in a lesson and leaves a lasting impression on your students. Lesson closures are a chance to emphasize key information, allow your students to ask questions that have plagued them throughout the process, and of course, inform your future instruction.

What Are the Strategies for Closing Lessons?

In an effective closure, the teacher will use strategies that include reviewing and summarizing a lesson, consolidating key information, creating a link to new ideas and building anticipation for the next lesson. During a good closure, the students will be given an opportunity to express any concerns, ask questions and clarify their own understandings. It will also give students the chance to celebrate and share any personal achievements with their peers.

Closing a lesson can also be used as an assessment tool for the teacher, indicating whether the students understood the lesson objective or if the teacher needs to alter the delivery of their lesson or pull a small group to address any misconceptions students may have after the lesson.

As a teacher, it is important to keep an eye on the clock and manage your lesson to ensure you have adequate time for the essential closure.

Creative Ways to Close a Lesson

Outlined below are some of our teacher team's most creative ways to close a lesson and provide your students with wrap-up activities.

Reflective Beach Ball

A fun way to close a lesson is to play a game of Reflective Beach Ball. Purchase a cheap beach ball from the dollar store, and write the following generic reflective questions on the white panels with a permanent marker:

What are you most proud of from today's lesson?

How did you overcome any challenges?

How did today's lesson make you feel?

What was one thing you learned from today's lesson?

What did you find most interesting?

How did you help others during the lesson?

Ask the students to throw the ball - or, ahem, pass it - around the classroom, ensuring that each student gets a turn with the ball. When a student catches the ball, they read the question out loud then share their answer with the class, before throwing the ball to the next person.

Alternatively, write the questions on a set of popsicle sticks, and place them in a jar. At the end of a lesson, pick a craft stick from the jar and ask the students to share their answers with a partner.

Create News "Headlines"

Pair your students off, and tell them to imagine they were writing "headlines" that summarize what they learned. Challenge each pair to write at least two headlines, then come back together to review the headlines.

Alternatively, you can do this as an entire class activity, writing the headlines suggested by students on your whiteboard.

Use Exit Tickets

Sometimes students are too scared to ask a question in front of their peers or celebrate a personal achievement, worried that it might make them look silly. A creative lesson closure that can help? Exit tickets.

These "tickets" ( we've got editable ones you can use as is or edit to address specific elements of the lesson) are basically forms kids can fill out with questions that remain or feedback. By using exit tickets, students are able to let you know of any concerns or successes before they leave the room, and you have an excellent formative assessment to work from.

A student should never leave your classroom with a head full of questions, feeling confused, or feeling deflated. Let them know that even though the lesson is over, there's still room for questions and comments! You could then follow up with the students as a class or individually before or during the next lesson.

Explore our complete exit ticket collection for dozens of teacher-created options!

Sticky Notes Parking Lot

A sticky note parking lot is a great way to close a lesson.

Hand out Post-It type notes at the beginning of the lesson and encourage your students to write down any questions or understandings related to the topic. You can pass out different colors to make it easier: For example, use pink for questions, yellow for almost understanding, and green to explain that they have got it.

At the end of the lesson, students "park" their sticky notes on the parking lot, and the teacher reads out the questions and encourages volunteers who know the answer to share with the class. This allows students to learn from their peers. Achievements from the yellow and green notes are celebrated and discussed as a class.

Using a sticky note parking lot to close a lesson also enables you as a teacher to review and summarize the lesson and consolidate key information with the students.

TILT - Today I Learned To

Have you done a TILT with your students yet? This lesson closure helps bring everything together! TILT stands for Today I Learned To.

Use this Today I Learned To (TILT) poster as a whole class or individually to allow students to reflect on what they learned that day. Display the poster in the classroom and refer to it before the next lesson.

Tip: Remind the students what they learned in the previous lesson, and discuss what they will be learning today with a WALT!

Reflective Thinking Prompts

Display our Reflective Thinking Posters in your classroom as a visual prompt for students to use as they reflect on their own learning.

At the end of a lesson, gather as a class and select a Reflective Thinking Card to be the reflective focus for the day. Read the prompt to the students and provide them with some quiet thinking time.

Ask for volunteers to share their reflective thoughts with the class and discuss any similarities or differences experienced during the lesson.

3-2-1 Feedback

At the end of a lesson, provide each student with a copy of the 3-2-1 Feedback template.

On the worksheet, students record three things they learned in the lesson, two fun facts, and one question they still have. Ask the students to share their thoughts with a partner.

Encourage students to try and answer each other's questions or suggest ways in which they could find the answer. Alternatively, complete a '3-2-1 Feedback' together as a whole class and ask students to find the answer for homework. At the start of the next lesson, ask the students to share their answers with the class.

Quick Rating

If there is only one minute left in the lesson, there is still time for a quick lesson closure. Ask the students to use their fingers to give the lesson a rating out of five, then ask three students to share the reason for their rating with the class.

The rating might be a general rating on the overall lesson, or it may be more specific, such as asking the students to give a rating of how well they understood the concept or a rating of personal improvements.

One Word Lesson Closure

One Word is another quick but creative lesson-closing activity that can be used at the end of any lesson.

Before leaving the room, students must think of one word that summarizes the lesson for themselves, then share the word with you before exiting. Their one word may relate to their understanding of the lesson, how they felt about the lesson, a question, or a celebration.

As a follow-up, choose three of the shared words with the whole class at the start of the next lesson.
Banner image via shutterstock/wavebreakmedia

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9 Wrap Up Activities for Lesson Closure That Work Like a Charm

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Here are some great ways to close out a lesson in the classroom. Closing a lesson well helps students retain information and helps you assess where they are...

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By David Ginsburg - March 27, 2011 1 min read

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David Ginsburg has served over 20 years as a math teacher, instructional leader, and PD provider. He leads a Philadelphia-based team of consultants that specializes in instructional coaching, leadership coaching, and common-core implementation.

It's common--and good--practice for teachers to have a short activity, often called a "Do Now," on the board for students to work on as soon as they enter class. Many teachers use the "Do Now" time to handle administrative tasks like taking attendance or organizing lesson materials. Then, after five or ten minutes, they say, "Ok, time's up," before taking another five or ten minutes to review the "Do Now" at the board.

That's right, up to ten minutes to review something without knowing whether students have even done it, let alone how well they've done it. The "Do Now" experience, as a result, plays out in one of three ways for most students:

They complete the "Do Now" correctly on their own, and then sit idly, socialize, or do something for another class as the teacher reviews the "Do Now"--at which point, for these students the "Do Now" has become the "Did Already." They sit idly, socialize, or do something for another class instead of doing the "Do Now" on their own, since they know the teacher will eventually do it for them--at which time they can copy down the answers. For these students, the "Do Now" is really the "Do Later." They sit idly, socialize, or do something for another class instead of doing the "Do Now" on their own but, unlike their "Do Later" classmates, they remain off task even when the teacher reviews the "Do Now." For these students, as you could probably guess, the "Do Now" is the "Do Never."

The lesson here is that if something is important enough for you to assign, it should be important enough for you to assess. (And don't confuse "assess" with "grade.") This means

circulating from the start to: encourage would-be "Do Later" or "Do Never" students; identify students' errors; determine how much time students need to complete the assignment; and assist students who've earned your help (see my last post, When Helping Students Hurts Students).

Taking a more active role like this will improve student participation, and let you know what if anything to review with the class. So it's definitely something you'll want to do... NOW.

As for administrative tasks, it's always best if you can handle them before or after class. But when that's not possible, as in the case of taking attendance, at least hold off until students need little or no supervision--e.g., when they're copying notes from the board.
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It's common--and good--practice for teachers to have a short activity, often called a "Do Now," on the board for students to work on as soon as they enter class. Many teachers use the "Do Now" time to handle administrative tasks like taking attendance or organizing lesson materials. Then, after...

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The evidence just keeps growing - postsecondary students engage more, learn more and accomplish more with active learning. In yet another proof point, a meta-analysis from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that student exam scores improved 6% when active learning approaches were used. And students in traditional classes were 1.5 times more likely to fail than those being taught with interactive methods.

During uncertain times like these, it might feel simpler to stick with what's familiar. But even if your classes have moved partially or fully online, that doesn't mean you're limited to lecturing. Even taking 5 or 10 minutes to shift from knowledge intake to interaction can make a difference.

Are you ready to move to a different way of teaching but need some ideas to get you started? Or maybe you've been running your courses this way for years but want ideas that work for the new reality. Whether your classes are in person, online or somewhere in between, here are 15 active learning activities to try with your students this semester.

1. Think-pair-repair

In this twist on think-pair-share, pose an open-ended question to your class and ask students to come up with their best answer. Next, pair learners up and get them to agree on a response. Get two pairs together, and the foursome needs to do the same thing. Continue until half the group goes head to head with the other half. If your students are online, breakout rooms in your conferencing software let you do the same thing virtually. Here's how it works in Zoom.

2. Improv games

If your classroom is museum-level quiet no matter how you try to liven things up, try some low-stakes (read: not embarrassing) improv activities. In the three things in common game, pairs figure out the most unexpected things they share (this can also be done online in breakout rooms). Or challenge your students to count to 20 as a group with one person saying each number - but no one is assigned a number, and if two people talk at the same time, everyone starts again at 1. (If some students are in the room and some remote, you'll need classroom audio with full-room coverage for this to work. Here's how Nureva audio can help.)

3. Brainwriting

You've probably tried brainstorming, but have you tried brainwriting? In this approach, students are given time to come up with their own ideas individually before sharing them out loud or posting them to an online whiteboard or other shared platform. Building in space for individual reflection leads to better ideas and less groupthink.

4. Jigsaw

Help students build accountability by teaching each other. Start by dividing them into "home groups" (4 or 5 people works well). Again, breakout rooms in Zoom or Google Meet make this simple even if everyone is remote. Assign each person in the group a different topic to explore - they'll regroup to work with all the students from the other groups who are exploring the same idea. Once they've mastered the concept, students return to their home group and everyone shares newfound expertise.

5. Concept mapping

Collaborative concept mapping is a great way for students to step away from their individual perspectives. Groups can do this to review previous work, or it can help them map ideas for projects and assignments. In pre-COVID times, you may have covered classroom walls with sticky notes and chart paper - now there are many online tools that make it simple to map out connections between ideas.

6. The one-minute paper

How much could you explain in one minute? At the end of class, set a timer and ask students to record their most eye-opening revelation or biggest question. This activity lets students reflect on learning and build writing skills - plus you'll get a window into their understandings and misunderstandings. Here are more prompts you can use to get students writing.

7. Real-time reactions

When students are watching a video, a mini lecture or another student's presentation, have them share their real-time reactions. This helps students spot trends and consider new points of view. You can set up a hashtag to allow for live tweeting, or use the chat function in your conferencing software.

8. Chain notes

Write several questions on pieces of paper and pass each to a student. The first student adds a response (use a timer to keep things moving quickly) and then passes the page along to gather more responses. Multiple contributions help build more complete understanding. A digital alternative involves using shared documents that multiple students are invited to edit. Then your class can examine the responses and identify patterns and missing pieces.

9. Idea line up

Choose a question that has a range of responses, and then ask students where they stand - literally. If you're not social distancing, have them come to the front of the classroom and organize themselves in a line, based on where on the spectrum of answers they find themselves. In a blended classroom or a physically distanced one, get them to place themselves on a virtual number line instead.

10. Mystery quotation

Test how well students can apply their understanding of an issue or theoretical position. After they've explored a topic, show them a quotation about it they've never seen before. Their task is to figure out the point of view of the person behind the quotation - and justify it to the class. Students can debate this issue in small breakout groups before beginning a whole-class discussion.

11. Idea speed dating

Have students cycle through your space, or through breakout rooms in Zoom or Google Meet, sharing insights about a topic or their elevator pitch for an upcoming project. As they present their learnings multiple times on several " speed dates," students' presentation skills and perspectives will grow.

12. Peer review

The process of peer review is as old as academia, and it's never too early to start. Have students swap drafts of their essays, proposals or lab reports, and then come up with comments and questions for each other. Make sure to be clear about what the goals are (using rubrics helps). For example, students could identify compelling arguments, unanswered questions and holes in logic.

13. Quescussion

Ever played Jeopardy? Then you're ready for quescussion. It's like a standard class discussion but only questions are allowed (students call "Statement!" if someone slips up). If you play this game at the beginning of the course, the questions can help shape your course. If you have students both in the room and calling in from a distance, make sure the remote learners get equal airtime and that your audio system is picking up student voices clearly.

14. Sketchnoting

Instead of taking traditional lecture notes, try getting your students to sketch a picture that represents what they've learned during class. Remember, it's not about the quality of the art - it's about how drawing prompts students to visualize their understanding and look at their learning from a different perspective.

15. Empathy mapping

Take a page from the designers' handbook and get students to explore deeper by embracing a perspective. It's deceptively simple - write down what a person says, thinks, does and feels. The ability to slow down and immerse yourself in another point of view is valuable. In design thinking, empathy maps help designers create better products for users. But this process can be just as valuable for analyzing characters from literature, historical figures or political stances.

Checklist: 8 audio essentials for HyFlex and hybrid learning

Do your higher ed audio systems support active learning? In a hybrid classroom, students need to be able to hear each other easily, no matter where they are. Instructors need to be able to change the room layout for different activities, as often as they like. See what else is on our audio essentials list - download your checklist today (no email address required).
Editor's note: This post was originally published August 2018 and has been updated.

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15 active learning activities to energize your next college class

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Whether you're teaching in person, online or both, here are 15 active learning activities to try with your students this semester. Check them out.

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Quick activities that can be used to check for understanding or emphasize key information at the end of a lesson.

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Brain Based Activities for Deeper Thinking

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Brain Based Activities for Deeper Thinking

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Retrieval practice, elaboration, and concept mapping help students make richer, more meaningful connections between ideas.

With uncertainty hovering over fall plans, teaching and learning continue to look different from district to district than ever before. While administrators juggle with tough choices, almost every teacher is back to reading, reflecting, and restructuring their lesson plans to keep their learners engaged and learning-and as equitable as possible given the constraints. In this post, I share three strategies, informed by the learning sciences, that teachers can use online or face-to-face to deepen student learning: retrieval practice, elaboration, and concept mapping.

Strategy 1: Retrieval Practice

1. Create a version of your study guide that has only the questions. Ask students to practice answering them without additional support. Once they're done, they can share their answers; they can also look up the correct answers, either alone or in groups.

2. Use a brain dump. Ask students to write down everything they remember relevant to your question (or the topic) on a piece of paper. You can stop here, or have students compare their work to find gaps, similarities, and differences.

Retrieval practice, or the practice of remembering, is a robust learning strategy as summarized in a meta-analysis of more than 200 studies published by my colleagues and me. Retrieval practice is when you push yourself to write, tell, or draw what you've already learned, and it can be especially helpful for concepts you may not remember as clearly-the process of remembering will help strengthen your memory. Plus, you have the added benefit of identifying what you know and don't know. Some teachers use this strategy in their classrooms already-maybe you do too. If not, here are two ways to start:

Strategy 2: Elaboration

1. Ask learners to compare two examples of the same concept or share specific examples. For example, when covering concepts of reusable energy, ask questions such as, "What are three similarities and differences between wind and solar energy?" Use these questions in a discussion board, in a short answer prompt, or to jazz up the thinking quotient of your worksheet.

2. Learners can explain the topic out loud to themselves, friends, a sibling, or a parent. You can also incorporate it into group activities-like a jigsaw-or have students role-play as the teacher and explain the topic to the class. For virtual classrooms, Flipgrid is an excellent tool: Students can record themselves reading about a topic and then answering questions like "How do I apply this topic in my life?" For younger students who may need more scaffolding, you can ask a more targeted prompt, like "How do I consume energy every day?"

Elaboration -also known as elaborative interrogation-refers to expanding a concept to be more detailed, allowing our brain to connect multiple concepts to one central idea. The more connections we make, the more likely we are to remember relevant information. Think of the icebreaker "Tell me one fun thing about yourself." Not only does it help you remember something interesting about a person-they like rocky road ice cream, for example-but you may also think of that person every time you see the flavor. In a learning context, elaboration can often be done by asking questions that require engaging deeply with content. So instead of asking learners to simply memorize information, they can compare and contrast right and wrong answers. This approach is so simple, you likely use it in your class already. Here are two ways to start:

Putting It All Together: Concept Mapping

Concept mapping combines retrieval practice and elaboration through the process of drawing one's understanding of relationships between concepts. A map usually contains at least two concepts (nouns), a relationship (verb or concise description), and a directional arrow connecting the concepts. When reading the map, we create mini sentences (excusing poor grammar, of course). For example, a student learning about bacteria can create a concept map that includes any relevant ideas-such as specific types of bacteria (" Helicobacter pylori") or ways to describe them ("single-celled organism"). This layout allows learners to identify what they know and where the gaps are, in addition to the relationships between concepts. A review of more than 140 experiments suggests that this strategy is superior to rote memorization because it encourages students to make richer, more meaningful connections within a topic.

1. Focusing stage: Learners are given or are asked to identify a guiding question-such as "How is ice formed?"-relevant to the current topic.

2. Brainstorming stage (making use of retrieval practice): Learners do a brain dump in response to the guiding question, writing down any concepts and ideas that come to mind.

3. Organizing stage (elaboration): Learners review their brain dump and pick out concepts that are central to the guiding question, followed by asking themselves, "How are these concepts connected?"

4. Layout stage: Learners build their map connecting the concepts with directional arrows showcasing their understanding. At the top of the map, they can start by writing down the main ideas of the topic, and then start connecting words together.

5. Linking stage: They complete the first draft of the concept map by labeling the arrows with these descriptions. For example, if they start with the words "ice" and "cold," they can connect the two with "is." This encourages learners to think about the relationships between different ideas.

6. Revising stage: There is no perfect concept map. Give learners the opportunity to redo and update based on their understanding.

There are six stages in concept mapping, starting with the instructor providing learners with a specific guiding question.

In the past, I've done concept mapping with kindergarteners, replacing words with pictures, and it's so much fun to have them form sentences using images. The goal is to help them retrieve, elaborate, and share their understanding. (I also recommend looking into Dual Coding for Teachers and other resources by Oliver Caviglioli.)

A final tip: You don't have to do all of these strategies for every topic. Pick and choose, mix and match. Start small and build up. These strategies work because they engage the learner's attention and encourage them to think more deeply about the content.

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3 Brain-Based Strategies That Encourage Deeper Thinking

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Retrieval practice, elaboration, and concept mapping help students make richer, more meaningful connections between ideas. With uncertainty hovering over fall plans, teaching and learning continue to look different from district to district than ever before.

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Independent and Guided Practice Examples

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Independent and Guided Practice Examples