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Interactive Classroom Techniques
Design activities to engage students
The Learning Pyramid (National Training Laboratories, Bethel, Maine)
Active learning techniques
- Ask students questions that probe their understanding, give initial answer, then discuss the question in small groups, report revised answer, discuss reasoning
- Use anonymous reporting of answers to instructor's questions: student reponse systems ("clickers") or numbered cards pointed toward instructor
- Call on students randomly using dice, spinning wheel, shuffled index cards with their names, etc.
- Distribute props that the students can handle and manipulate
- Engage students in debates, asking them to give reasons for their positions
- Develop hypotheses/predict outcome of demonstration; what information would support a hypothesis; class vote on which hypothesis is best supported
- Play devil's advocate - have students discuss what the opposite outcome would mean
- Case studies
Slides from presentation by Professor Doug Zook of the Boston University School of Education on how to challenge and stimulate students with active learning methods.
Keep students emotionally involved in the class (from Anatoly Temkin)
- Use humor
- Challenge students ("I bet that none of you can figure out the answer to this question in 3 minutes")
- Make liberal use of analogies and examples that relate to their lives
Give attendance/participation credit that is pedagogically meaningful
- Discussion credit that gives feedback on students' participation performance
- Daily/weekly one-question quizzes on homework material or previous day's content
Classroom Assessment Techniques
From Angelo, T.A. and Cross, K.P. (1993) Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers)
- Focused Listing or Brainstorming
- Categorizing Grid or Defining Features Matrix
- Minute Paper or One Sentence Summary
- Content, Form, and Function Outlines (who, what, why, when, where, how)
- Student-Generated Test Questions
- Human Tableau, Class Modeling, or Role-playing
Additional resources
Derek Bok Center, Harvard University (1992) Twenty Ways To Make Lectures More Participatory (Tips for Teachers).
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