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Teacher Feature: Movement in the classroom

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Using The 3-2-1 Learning Strategy For Critical Thinking

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The 3-2-1 strategy is a simple way to frame a topic or task, making it useful for anything from discussion prompts to inquiry learning.

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Free PowerPoint template and Google Slides theme.

Free Digital Handbook with sections and hyperlinks. 7, 14 or 21 clickable tabs.

Many teachers were adapting the Scrapbook template, Isabel Morales was one of them, and to make it available for all, using the ringed notebook concept I added pages with tabs that you can "flip". And because I'm fascinated by hyperdocs I thought of it as a simple packaging for them.

As usual, if you want to use it for something else, you can edit the titles of the tabs by clicking on Edit > Find and Replace

Find: Engage

Replace with: Your Title

Colors are editable within the master, go to Slide > Edit Theme and change the theme colors.

Do not delete or add slides, duplicate the existing ones so you don't have to add the links again.

To keep the illusion of the tabs and pages, if you need more pages, duplicate page 3 of each section, if you only need one slide within each tab, delete pages 2 and 3. And if you want to keep 2 slides within each section, delete pages number 3.

If you want to lock your content to prevent your students move or delete anything by mistake, remember to place it on the master.

7 tabs version.

14 tabs version.

21 tabs version.

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Hyperdoc handbook template with interactive tabs. Free PowerPoint template & Google Slides theme - SlidesMania

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Many teachers were adapting the Scrapbook template, Isabel Morales was one of them, and to make it available for all, using the ringed notebook concept I added pages with tabs that you can "flip". And because I'm fascinated by hyperdocs I thought of it as a simple packaging for them.

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"This is my mother-in-law, now 99 years old. She has been practicing Bal-A-Vis-X nearly 4 years. The exercises brought her back from the brink of dementia, when she would only repeat "No" or "I don't know" or "I can't remember." Now she jokes, remembers loads, tells stories, enjoys life. BAVX has been a very important part of her amazing return to well-being. Heart gratitude."

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"This is my mother-in-law, now 99 years old. She has been practicing Bal-A-Vis-X nearly 4 years. The exercises brought her back from the brink of dementia, when she would only repeat "No" or "I don't know" or "I can't remember." Now she jokes, remembers loads, tells stories, enjoys life.

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Rewordify.com | Understand what you read

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Rewordify.com helps you read more, understand better, learn new words, and teach more effectively.

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C.O.: I can agree or disagree with Anticipation statements about capital punishment.
L.O.: I can orally or in writing justify my reasoning for agreeing or disagreeing with Anticipation statements about capital punishment.

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Anticipation Guide - Social Studies Success

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PreReading an important aspect of content literacy. But many teachers do not take the time to build schema before they require their students to read. Anticipation Guides have been around for years, but many times are not used effectively. What are some new ways to use them? What is it?

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Educator, student, marketer, engineer, gamer. Whatever part you play, you'll have simple, yet powerful screen recording and editing tools.
Learn more

Easily share your creations in multiple channels. Let more viewers watch, pause and rewind on their schedule while maximizing time by eliminating unnecessary meetings.
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Collect video assignments to ensure any team or student is heard. Track viewing activity and add interactive questions and more to ensure your message is understood.
Learn more

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Screencastify | Screen Recording and Video Editing

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Screencastify is the leading screen recorder for Chrome. Install the extension to record, edit, and share videos in seconds. Create video class assignments, training and tutorials, and make business communication faster.

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To learn more discussion strategies from our own . . .

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To learn more discussion strategies from our own . . .

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A History of the World in 5 Minutes (BBC Radio 4)

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How to use the Nearpod Add-On in Google Slides

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We express ourselves in different ways. On Flip, you can use our simple and fun built-in camera to record your thoughts, add effects and share within your Flip group as video, audio only or text in your web browser or mobile app.

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Flip is a video discussion and sharing app, free from Microsoft.

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Flip (formerly Flipgrid) is a video discussion and video sharing app, free from Microsoft, built for classrooms and beyond. Learn more.

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Graphic organizers are a great tool to use when teaching English language learners (ELLs). Visual illustrations allow ELLs to better understand the material while learning important vocabulary.

Graphic organizers are most useful to ELLs when presented in small group activities. During the activities ELLs benefit from opportunities to work cooperatively - students are able to discuss and share their thoughts as they begin to contribute to the group effort. When ELLs use graphic organizers, they show achievement benefits across a variety of content areas, in all grade levels.

Ideas for Graphic Organizers

When teachers begin to use graphic organizers they need to follow some simple steps to make sure ELLs gain knowledge from such a simple yet reliable tool (Merkley & Jefferies, 2001). For example as a teacher begins to present a new topic, such as the solar system, an organizer can assist introducing the new idea.

Teachers should also begin to verbalize the relationship between the ideas, and the information that will be taught. Students or adults can write/draw the information provided by other students using a K-W-L chart. Graphic organizers should be tailored to reinforce the relationships between concepts, reminding students that this is just a quick preview of the material that will be taught next.

Secondly, teachers need to provide the opportunity for students to participate in discussions. ELLs need to have numerous pauses to process language in order to participate. For instance, classroom activities can be tailored to let students create graphs such as a concept definition map. Students can create a list of familiar terms to these maps.

Once students had the opportunity to share their thoughts and understand the topic that it is to follow, teachers can start to connect new material to their prior knowledge. Lessons need to guide ELLs to activate prior knowledge as they recollect earlier taught content to be able to retain new material (Merkley & Jefferies, 2001). In other words, graphic organizers provide a visual summary as they describe information - introducing ELLs to new technical vocabulary as they reinforce decoding skills of key words for an upcoming lesson.

Graphic organizers facilitate ELLs' comprehension through visual illustrations of key terms, vocabulary, ideas, and the relationship among them. Improving student's reading comprehension can be challenging, but such progress is necessary when focusing on students who are learning English (Kim, Vaughn, Wanzek, & Wei, 2004).

Note: When using graphic organizers with ELLs, be sure to explain how to use them and check back to ensure their understanding.

Strategy: K-W-L Chart

K-W-L charts are graphic organizers where students can share:

Here are some examples:

Video: Using a K-W-L Chart for background knowledge

ELL high school teacher Christine Rowland explains how to use a KWL chart to identify students' existing background knowledge.

Recommended Resources

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Graphic organizers are a great tool to use when teaching English language learners (ELLs). Visual illustrations allow ELLs to better understand the material while learning important vocabulary. Graphic organizers are most useful to ELLs when presented in small group activities.

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My AP Literature class in 2018 engaged in a discussion

After introducing my AP Lit students to literary analysis tools and critical theory, I teach a unit called "Identity and Culture" with Toni Morrison's novel Song of Solomon at the center. In the past, I have turned this unit into a bit of a slog, as I want to discuss everything that happens. As a result, the discussions have tended to be teacher-led, and we never seemed to get through everything I wanted to talk about. You see the problem, don't you? It was about me and not the students' needs. I can be especially guilty of this pedagogical crime when I'm teaching a book I really love-like Song of Solomon. This year, I decided to change my approach. Obviously, I needed to do something more student-centered.

I attended the Mosaic AP Slow Conference this summer, and in one session presented by Roy Smith and Brian Sztabnik, I learned how to create a digital notebook (see link; their materials are near the top of the page as of this writing). I replicated the notebook that Roy shared in the presentation using this free template at Slidesmania. The notebook allowed students to wrestle with the novel's characters and themes and analyze the text deeply. We could pull back a bit on the class discussion because I was asking students to do more of the work of analysis on their own. The side benefit is that doing this analysis better prepared the students for the class discussions.

The second change to my approach involved the discussions themselves. I knew I didn't want to lead full-class discussions each day. I decided to try different discussion techniques that included a mix of small group discussions in which all students could participate and larger group discussions that engaged the class as a whole. I tried each of the following strategies successfully in the unit.

TQE: Thoughts, Questions, Epiphanies

I learned about this technique through Jennifer Gonzalez's Cult of Pedagogy blog. Marisa Thompson developed this discussion strategy in which students discuss their thoughts, questions, and epiphanies about a text in small groups for 15 minutes. Then they identify their top two TQEs and write them on the board. The student-generated TQEs become the basis for the full-class discussion that follows. I like this strategy because it engages students in both small group discussions and full-class discussions. It gives them a focus. In Gonzalez's blog post, you can see the stems Thompson uses to help students generate topics for discussion. As students are working in small groups, I circulate and listen. I have also tried this strategy in my Social Justice course with great results.

Small Group Scene Studies

Because the notebooks the students used as they read the text included a section for scene studies, I decided I would ask students to do a mix of independent scene studies and group scene studies. The goal of a scene study is to analyze the events in a scene. What happens? On a deeper level, what does it mean? Do you notice any symbols? How does the scene connect to larger themes in the text? How do characters develop in the scene? Scene studies are great for those pivotal moments in a text, such as when a character has an epiphany or when a major event happens, and you want students to think about the details. We had done a scene study together as a class in which we compared and contrasted Robert Smith's leap to Henry Porter's standoff in the first chapter of the novel, so they had a model for the process. Sometimes I asked students to select a scene and do a scene study in their notebooks for homework, but on other occasions, I asked them to work in a small group to conduct a scene study. Groups then shared out their findings about a scene with the whole class. I could easily see this working as a "jigsaw" discussion, too. In that case, each group might analyze a different scene and the sharing would take on additional import as they taught their peers about the scene.

Conversation Stations

Also known as "converstations," this strategy engages students in small group discussions about characters, scenes, events, themes... whatever you like! I teach AP Lit with a colleague, and she identified several quotes from one of the chapters and asked one or two questions about each quote. These quotes were posted in different areas around the room where students could write responses. Students start at one quote station and move through each station, commenting on the questions and adding to their peers' comments as well. After rotating through each station as a group, students navigate to the quote that speaks to them the most, and they unpack that station's commentary for the whole class. They don't have to move as a group to identify the quote they want to unpack. This method incorporates some movement, so it's a good way to get students on their feet and thinking. The danger is that some quotes may not attract as many students. I had that happen to one station, and I decided to unpack that station's commentary. I also did not have the whiteboard space in the classroom where I teach (as my colleague did), so I used large sticky posters.

A twist on this strategy involves creating a slide deck with a slide for each student group where they can write their responses to each station. Each station is a different slide in the deck. The stations can have quotes, questions, or some mix of both. I also borrowed this idea from my AP Lit teaching colleague. It works especially well when you have a hybrid or Zoom class, and you want to engage students in group work.

Protocols

Discussion protocols are also a great way to engage students in small group discussions. The School Reform Initiative has many discussion protocols that not only work well for professional meetings but can also be adapted for the classroom, including many text-based protocols. I tried two text-based protocols developed by SRI: Save the Last Word for ME and the Four "A"s Text Discussion. The only real changes I needed to make were adapting some of the timed portions to fit my 70-minute class periods and changing terms like "article" to "text."

I used an adaptation of the Four "A"s Text Protocol that asks students to discuss a character's "assumptions," what they want to "agree with," what they want to "argue" with, and what they want to "ask" the character. We used this protocol after we learned about Guitar's involvement in the Seven Days, which helped the students go beneath the surface and beyond their first reaction to the Seven Days and think more critically about Guitar and his involvement in this organization. This protocol allowed students to explore the nuances and angles in the text.

We used the "Save the Last Word for ME" protocol after reading chapter 9, which rounds out First Corinthians and Magdalene called Lena's characters and delves more deeply into their stories. This protocol is especially good for engaging every voice, as each participant must speak. Each participant shares a passage, and the other group members discuss the passage before circling back to the presenter, who then explains why they chose the passage. This protocol is also great for driving students into the text, as it is passage-based.

Notebook-Led Discussions

Notebook-led discussions might not be the best term for this strategy, but I called them notebook-led discussions because I asked students to share some detail from their notebooks as a frame for the discussion. Rather than generate questions I would ask them in a full-class discussion, asked them which scene they focused on for a scene study, and they shared what they captured in their notes. Other students added on as they generated questions or ideas about the scenes. This strategy also worked for focusing on characters. I might ask what details they captured about a character's development in a reading. This strategy is a twist on the typical teacher-led discussion as it asks students to share the details from their notebooks that they want to focus on for discussion.

Socratic Seminar and Fishbowl Discussion

I use Socratic Seminar discussion often but decided to try a Fishbowl Discussion after Part I of the novel to allow students to discuss the text in smaller groups, practice listening and note-taking skills, and analyze the text up until that point. Fishbowl Discussions divide the class into small groups. My class sizes are just right for dividing into two groups. The inner circle discusses the text, while the outer circle takes notes. The groups swap places and repeat the procedure. Students don't like that those conversations can be repetitive and sometimes want to address a point that came up in the other group's discussion, but there are ways you can mitigate these problems by allowing time to debrief or creating different questions for each group. My students generate their own questions for Socratic Seminar and Fishbowl Discussions using the Question Formulation Technique from the Right Question Institute. I ask students to do a reflection that includes the following elements:

A summary of the discussion

Identify a comment made by a peer and explain why you responded to it (agree, disagree, made me think, etc.)

Explain how the seminar contributed to your learning

Connect the discussion to something else (a personal experience, learning in another class, another book, etc).

Assess yourself and set goals for next time

I have been using this reflection template for years. I initially discovered it through Greece Central School District's (New York) website for their ELA programs, but they have since taken down all of these resources. You can easily create a reflection template that works for you.

If you've tried discussion techniques that work well for you, please feel free to share in the comments.

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After introducing my AP Lit students to literary analysis tools and critical theory, I teach a unit called "Identity and Culture" with Toni Morrison's novel Song of Solomon at the center. In the past, I have turned this unit into a bit of a slog, as I want to discuss everything that happens.

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As long as class sizes continue to increase, it is likely that lecturing will be a dominant teaching method in university class rooms. However, there are many different activities that can be integrated into a lecture-based course to encourage the students to engage with the subject material, to facilitate interaction among the students and between the students and the professor, and to revitalize the course by providing a change of pace.

For brief descriptions of a number of easy-to-implement ideas beyond those described on this sheet, see the Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE) teaching tip sheets on " Active Learning Activities" and " Activities for Large Classes."

This tip sheet provides more detailed descriptions of nine activities, including a number of relatively structured activities, along with their time requirements, special features, implementation procedures, and function in the course. The activities are:

Activity 1: Questions

Time requirements: Varies

Special features: Questions are the simplest form of interactive teaching tool. They are useful in any discipline. They can help make students active learners and gauge their level of interest and comprehension.

Procedure

1. Develop key questions before class. They won't occur to you on the spot.

2. Decide when you're going to ask them. Thinking ahead also allows you to plan your time.

3. Ask questions that can be answered, but favour open-ended questions over yes/no questions.

4. Vary the form and level of the questions. Questions that have multiple correct answer or that rely only on general knowledge are good for encouraging participation. More complex questions can be used to gauge student knowledge.

5. Ask only one question at a time or you will confuse the students.

6. Pause between asking and accepting replies (pausing gives students a chance to think of an answer, and by not asking the first person who raises his/her hand, you encourage quieter students to participate).

7. Acknowledge all answers - thank students for participating, repeat their comments so the class can hear and/or write them on the board. This supports continued participation.

8. Keep the whole class involved in the question and answer exchange. Move around the room when trying to elicit participation. When responding to a student question or comment, split your attention so that you are focused on the class in general 75% of the time and the student commenter 25% of the time.

Function in the class: Questions are integral to the success of discussion groups. They can also be the organizing principle behind a tutorial or lecture. During lectures, ask questions early on to stimulate interest and gauge students' level of knowledge; in the middle, to break the pace of the lecture; and/or at the end, to review main ideas and gather ideas for future classes.

Activity 2: Pro and con grid

Time requirements: 15-20 minutes

Special features: This technique helps students develop analytical and evaluative skills, and encourages them to go beyond initial reactions to complex issues. It can be used in any discipline: students can evaluate the pros and cons of a procedure, technique, conclusion, action of a fictional character, political decision, etc.

Procedure

1. Divide students into small groups, if necessary.

2. Specify how many pros and cons you'd like each individual or group to develop.

3. Allow five to ten minutes for discussion or silent thought.

4. Ask for input: write pros on one side of the board and cons on the other side.

5. Combine pros and cons that are very similar, and count the number of times they recur to show their perceived importance.

Function in the class: Consider using the pros and cons as the basis for a debate, or for a discussion/lecture structured around the evaluation of course material.

Activity 3: Debate

Time requirements: 15-25 minutes

Special features: Debates can be formal or informal: what follows is about informal debates (i.e., debating as a method of class discussion). See Bean (1996) for instructions for holding a formal debate - a much more complicated and lengthy process that can be a focal point for an entire segment of course material. A debate is a good way to encourage class participation in large groups without losing control, and they can work in any discipline. Instructors can plan debates beforehand, or they can emerge spontaneously from classroom material.

Procedure

1. Describe the background context, and explain why you are having a debate.

2. Consider establishing ground rules for the discussion (ex. Disagreements are welcome, name calling and interruptions are not).

3. Decide on the two (or more) sides to the debate.

4. Physically group the class according to points of view: either assign students a point of view depending on where they sit, or ask people who want to argue each point of view to move to sit together.

5. Invite someone from one side to begin the debate by stating his/her point of view.

6. Invite someone from the other side to state the opposite point of view.

7. Open the floor to comments that question or expand on the issues that were raised.

8. For large groups, you may want to have speakers raise their hands while you moderate, but for small groups, anyone can speak up.

9. The debate will probably start slowly at first, but the intensity should pick up as the students become more comfortable with the new style of in-class interaction.

10. You, as moderator, can ask provocative questions, but don't express judgment on any point of view or students will hesitate to bring out new ideas for fear of being embarrassed.

11. After 10 to 15 minutes of debating, end the debate.

Function in the class: Use ideas and conflicts from the debate to lead into your presentation of course material.

Activity 4: Guided analysis

Time requirements: 30-50 minutes

Special features: This technique helps students develop their analytical skills in any field by observing your analytical skills in action.

Procedure

1. Select a document (a short review, section of computer programming, poem, proof, chart, abstract from an article, news item, etc.) to analyze as an example.

2. Make enough copies of a similar document to distribute to all class members or to small groups (depending on your preference).

3. Perform an analysis of your document in front of the class, making clear the procedure you use to reach your assertions, and using visual aids and supplementary material as necessary.

4. Give students five to ten minutes to analyze their document: the conclusions they reach will be their own, but they will have learned rigour and analytical skills from you.

5. Depending on class size, have students (or representatives from small groups) present their analysis, and respond to each one.

Function in the class: An entire 50-minute tutorial or lecture can be structured around this exercise. Consider leading into the exercise with a mini-lecture on the type of document you and your students will be analyzing.

Activity 5: Case study

Time requirements: 20-50 minutes

Special features: The case-study method was pioneered at the Harvard law and business schools. Business and law cases tend to be very detailed and long, and take several classes to analyze, but instructors can apply a simplified case-study method (described below) for teaching in many disciplines. Applying theory to an instance as described by some source material can demonstrate the applicability of the course material beyond the classroom. A good case study:

Presents students with a situation they can relate to from their own life experience.

Includes realistic information. Examples can include scripts of exchanges that took place between key parties, news articles about situations of interest, background information about the organization of interest, etc.

Has a conflict that students can resolve.

Procedure

1. Get source material (short story, news articles, account of a decision or procedure, video, role-play script, etc.) to use as the basis for the case study.

2. Provide students with a focus or framework to use in doing their analysis.

3. Give students time to analyze the case individually or in groups, and to write down their analysis.

4. Begin a discussion of students' analyses.

5. Act as a mediator of the discussion. Don't offer your own opinion except to provide guidance on the process (remind students of the framework if discussion becomes unfocused).

6. After analysis has been completed, show how the case study illustrates application of theoretical or background concepts in course material.

Function in the class: Use a case study to lead into a discussion or lecture of course material, showing its relevance by referring back to the case study.

Activity 6: Field trip

Time requirements: At least 50 minutes; preferably a couple of hours

Special features: A field trip can be especially interesting for students and instructors, and it facilitates some types of learning that cannot take place in a classroom. A field trip to a professional institution can show students where their studies may lead them. A field trip for the purpose of gathering data can give students practice with research techniques and show them the relevance of course material to the outside world. Some courses or departments require field trips which you will have to lead. In other courses, you might be able to consider short field trips during your discussion groups or tutorials to locations on or near campus. For example:

For an engineering course, consider arranging a tour of one of Waterloo's lab facilities

For a sociology course, consider sending students to observe the working conditions of various jobs on the Waterloo campus.

If leaving the classroom is not feasible, consider using media such as videos or computer simulations as "virtual" field trips.

Procedure

1. Prepare for time constraints, bad weather, and other misfortunes.

2. Look at past course outlines or notes to gather ideas for where to go.

3. Communicate a clear "mission" of the field trip to the students.

4. Research shows that students learn more from field trips in which they are not simply observers: encourage students to participate in their surroundings by giving an assignment that must be accomplished using data from the field or notes from a visit.

5. Taking effective field notes and identifying the key points of a field trip can be hard: consider giving students a worksheet allowing them to do a self-guided tour - include questions to be answered.

6. During the class before the field trip, have a preparatory session: discuss practical matters (dress, safety, equipment to bring) and the academic background to the field trip.

7. Very important: allow enough time for debriefing (discussing and processing data obtained on the field trip) as soon as possible afterwards.

Function in the class: Generally, an entire class will be spent on a field trip. Classes before and afterwards can be used to prepare for and process the trip. A field trip can provide a good focus for a segment of course material.

Activity 7: Role-play

Time requirements: 20-30 minutes

Special features: Role-plays can be used to allow students to experiment with different styles of interaction, practice new communication techniques or explore complex issues. They are generally used in classes dealing with social issues (social sciences, management sciences, etc.) or communication strategies (interviewing techniques, conflict management, etc.). If possible, participate in a role-play yourself before trying one in class. Essentially, a role-play is a form of interactive case study where the experience of participating in the role-play is the basis for further discussion.

Procedure

1. Get scenarios and characters for role-plays from news stories, history books, generic business situations, or by writing them yourself from scratch.

2. Explain why you are using a role-play to cover course material.

3. Describe the background context or setting to the role-play.

4. Give roles to "players": hand them a card with a brief description of the character they're playing, their point of view, characteristics, etc.

5. For groups with more students than possible roles, you can either assign "observer" tasks to non-players (e.g., taking notes on a particular player), or assign identical roles to subgroups of students (e.g., one student can play a city council member, and a sub-group of four or five students can play a homeowners' coalition).

6. Ask for volunteers for certain roles or observers: you may use this as one way to allot bonus points to students.

7. Allow a few minutes for students to prepare for their roles.

8. After 10-15 minutes, end the role-play.

Function in the class: Debrief and discuss the role-play. Use players' perceptions and observers' notes to lead into discussion of course material. Pay special attention to conflicts, ambiguities, etc.

Activity 8: One-minute paper

Time requirements: 3-5 minutes

Special features: The one-minute paper and the ungraded quiz that follows are both examples of ungraded, written, in-class activities (see Davis, 1993 p. 209-212 for more options). These activities are a flexible way to acquire candid feedback on the course material and your presentation style. The one-minute paper can be done especially quickly and it shows students that they can write quickly and spontaneously, and enhances general writing ability.

Procedure:

1. Give a prompt for the paper such as "what was the most important concept of this lecture?" or "what was the muddiest point of this lecture?"

2. Give students one or two minutes to think about the topic without writing anything.

3. Give students a short period of time (1 minute?) to write as much as they can.

4. Collect papers (depending on the class atmosphere and the types of questions used, you may ask students to put their names on them but generally these ungraded assignments are left anonymous to encourage open responses to the questions.)

Function in the class: Assign one-minute papers at the end of a class to gauge comprehension, provide general writing practice, and give students an incentive to absorb and comprehend course material. Consider using the content of one-minute papers to plan content of upcoming classes: when students see that the instructor responds to their concerns, confusions, and questions in future classes, they will be motivated to participate.

Activity 9: Ungraded quiz

Time requirements: 5-10 minutes

Special features: An ungraded quiz encourages students to pay attention during lectures by presenting them with a short-term, non-threatening learning objective. It can be done very quickly, and also provides you with a source of candid feedback on students' knowledge level.

Procedure:

1. Write question(s) on the board, overhead, or handout

2. Give students five to ten minutes to respond on a blank sheet of paper (depending on the atmosphere in the class, you may keep the quiz anonymous or ask students to put their names on papers)

3. Collect papers and report on responses next time the class meets

4. One variation: Prepare multiple-choice answer options and present each one in turn, asking for a show of hands

5. Another variation: Before (or instead of) collecting quiz papers, have students exchange and "grade" each other's quiz papers based on the answers you present. This grading is to allow students to provide the students with timely feedback so that they can gauge their understanding and should not be used as a formal assessment.

Function in the class: Use ungraded quizzes at the beginning of a lecture to determine the level of knowledge, or at the end of a lecture as a review and incentive for students to retain and comprehend information. Alternatively, use an ungraded quiz at the end of a lecture to gauge how successful you've been in teaching the material.

Resources

CTE teaching tips "Active Learning Activities" and "Activities for Large Classes"

References

Angelo, T.A. and K.P. Cross. Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers. 2nd edition. San Francisco: Jossy-Bass, 1993.

Bean, J.C. Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996.

Davis, B.G. Tools for Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993.

Frederick, P.J. "The lively lecture - 8 variations." College Teaching vol. 34 no. 2, pp. 43-50.

Kent, M.; Gilbertson, D.D. and C.O. Hunt. "Fieldwork in geography teaching: a critical review of the literature and approaches." Journal of Geography in Higher Education vol. 21 no. 3 (1997), pp. 313-331.

Newble, D. and R. Cannon. A Handbook for Teachers in Universities and Colleges: A Guide to Improving Teaching Methods. New York: Kogan Page, 1989.

Prégent, R. Charting Your Course: How to Prepare to Teach More Effectively. English edition. Madison, WI: Magna, 1994.

Prichard, K.W. and R. M. Sawyer, eds. Handbook of College Teaching: Theory and Applications. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1994.

Stonehall, L. How to Write Training Manuals. San Diego: Pfeiffer, 1991.

This Creative Commons license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon our work non-commercially, as long as they credit us and indicate if changes were made. Use this citation format: Nine Alternatives to Lecturing. Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo.

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Nine Alternatives to Lecturing | Centre for Teaching Excellence

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As long as class sizes continue to increase, it is likely that lecturing will be a dominant teaching method in university class rooms. However, there are many different activities that can be integrated into a lecture-based course to encourage the students to engage with the subject material, to facilitate interaction among the students and between the students and the professor, and to revitalize the course by providing a change of pace.

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Preview-View-Review strategy