Active Learning Strategies

With a generation of students whose ability to focus seems to diminish yearly, as well as the fact that we have extended periods throughout most of our district, it is essential that teachers have a toolbox filled with active processing strategies. These strategies help maintain student engagement and enable students to transfer their learning into long-term knowledge that can be applied in other situations.

Here are a few favorite active processing strategies, along with a link to the original source if you want to read further.

 Make Snowballs (from http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2016/03/03/20-strategies-for-motivating-reluctant-learners/).

Students write answers to a prompt on a piece of paper. On the count of three, they throw their “snowball” randomly up and away (but not at anyone) and then grab a snowball that near them. This enables students to purposefully pause, reflect, make connections, and consider others’ thinking. Perez, the teacher cited in the source, uses this strategy in all subjects, sometimes asking students to write three new vocabulary words they learned, three successes they had in that lesson, or three questions. “Students love it and it’s inclusionary because it’s anonymous,” Perez said. Students also get to see one another’s thinking in this activity.

Mind Warm-Up (from http://www.edutopia.org/classroom-student-participation-tips)

As a warm-up, ask students to find mistakes purposefully placed in material written on the board. But instead of asking them to work silently and alone, and then debrief in a classic question-and-answer session with one student at a time (while many sit inattentively), use a mix of collaboration and competition to eliminate what could potentially become dead time.

Organize teams of three students and ask them to work together (quietly) and raise their hands when they think they have found all the mistakes. After the first team signals it's done, give a bit more time and then have teams indicate with their fingers -- together on the count of three -- the number of mistakes they found in the work. The team that found the most describes its answers until another team disagrees politely or until they are finished.

Two Truths and a Lie (original source unknown)

Most of us have played Two Truths and a Lie as a party game or ice-breaker.  Make this activity educational, however, by having small groups of students come up with two truths and one lie about the content they are studying. As an example, students studying Macbeth might say: 

1.       The idea to murder King Duncan originated with Lady Macbeth (lie).

2.       Lady Macduff can be viewed as a foil to Lady Macbeth (truth).

3.       Macbeth is ultimately slain by a man who was not “born of woman (truth).”

Either another small group, or the class as a whole, must determine which is the lie, and, most important, WHY it is a lie. This is a great review strategy for a test or upcoming essay.