This document provides 26 cards with activating teaching ... · use these recordings (weblectures)...

Department of Educational Support

Inspirational Cards for Activating Teaching Methods

This document provides 26 cards with activating teaching methods for use in higher education. If you search on the internet, you may find many more! The selection of methods in this document is made by me for use during inspirational sessions for teachers of the Science Faculty.

Be inspired and (further) improve you teaching skills with these methods!If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me or one of my colleagues.

Kind regards,Hienke [email protected]

Version April 2018

mailto:[email protected]

Department of Educational Support Department of Educational Support

Implementation level:

Take a break of two minutes after 15 minutes lecturing.Urge your students to finish their notes (of the 15 minutes lecture) in this time and let them discuss any questions they have with their neighbors. After two minutes, ask (open ended) what should be more clarified. It might help to walk around in the room during this clarification-part to give students, who would never ask a question in front of the whole lecture hall, a chance to ask it to you more informally.

Variation: Instead of making notes, let students individually answer a key question or summarizing question (for example: ‘What is the key problem we face here?’ or ‘What are the key definitions and concepts?’). Let them discuss their answers shortly with their neighbors.

Take

a B

reak

Mentimeter can be used when asking a question (but don’t leave out the discussion with fellow students).

Setting: Lecture


Choose a couple of moments (for example at the start, after 15 minutes and again after 15 minutes, for a 45 minute lecture) in which you ask for the students prior knowledge. “What do you already know about…?” or “What is the difference between … and …?”. Let the students write their answers down in keywords. This helps students to connect new knowledge to prior knowledge. You can also use the answers to address certain misunderstandings or to adjust the level of your lecture.

Ask

firs

tMentimeter can be used to create a word cloud. Beware: let all students answer first, before showing the cloud.

Setting: Lecture



TBL is an extensive teaching method in which three activities are central: preparation (self-study of the content), a Readiness Assurance Test at the beginning of the plenary session (to test how well the student prepared), and applied team assignments. There is a strict order in the test and design of the assignments.

More information: www.teambasedlearning.org


Provide students with a framework which can be filled in during or after a lecture/movie/article. Think for example of an “organizational framework”, an empty graph in which only the axes are filled in (leave the plotting for the students), an empty diagram (labelling is for the students), a table with data (without the crucial figures), partial calculations, a partially empty concept map or a series of questions that students should be able to answer afterwards. Using a framework for notes helps students to distinguish between key concepts and side-issues.

Fram

ewo

rk f

or

no

tes

Setting: Lecture, Self-study

Team

Bas

edLe

arn

ing

Setting: Lecture, Workgroup, Self-study

“Interpret this model” “Complete this model” “Create a model”

Instructor-generatedor instructor-selected

Learner-generated

Image from Quillin K, Thomas S (2014) Drawing-to-Learn: A Framework for Using Drawingsto Promote Model-Based Reasoning in Biology. CBE-Life Sciences Education 14, 1-16

Preparation

Individual readiness test

Team readiness test

Applied team assignments

Class discussion



Student-Centered Active Learning Environment with Upside-down Pedagogies (SCALE-UP) is more a setting of the classroom than a teaching method on its own. The idea is that you give student teams something interesting to investigate. There is no separate lecture, practical or work group session. Each team gathers information on the topic (provided or not by the teacher), does experiments in class and has roundtable discussions. Each team is equipped with one or more laptops and a whiteboard. If needed, mini-lectures (max. 15 minutes) are given by the teacher or students. The role of the teacher is to roam around the classroom, ask questions, sending one team to help another, or asking why someone else got a different answer.


Explain difficult concepts in knowledge clips (movies of max. 10 minutes). Students can watch these clips as preparation for a lecture or an assignment, or they can watch it afterwards to repeat the information if they didn’t grasp it the first time.

Variation: Instead of a knowledge clip, students can (re)read a short text with a high information density, or study an infographic.

Kn

ow

led

ge C

lip

Radboud University has a studio in which you can record your own video. It is located in the Spinoza building. More information on: https://www.radboudnet.nl/ictineducation/knowledge-clips/ (bit.ly/2tcrFnr) or contact Kees Oerlemans ([email protected]).

Setting: Self-study

SCA

LE-U

P

Setting: Lecture, Workgroup, Self-study, Practical

More information: http://scaleup.ncsu.edu



Divide your students in groups of four and give each group member a concept to explain. The student prepares himself with information provided by the teacher or information that he or she can find on the internet or other sources. When the group meets again after this preparation, the students sit in pairs. First one student getsa set time (one minute for example) to explain his concept to the other student (1-on-1). Then the other students gets time (again one minute) to ask questions for clarification and better understanding. In the next step the group members have to switch places and repeat the procedure. After six rounds everyone has explained his/her concept to everyone else and knows the concepts of the other group members.

Variation: When a concept is explained to a student, that student has to explain the just-learned concept to the next student.


Within your lecture you can ask a question (content-related or asking for an opinion). Let your students individually think about this question and announce that someone you choose has to answer the question. After the ‘think time’ everyone has to stand up. Choose someone to tell his or her answer. Everyone who had the same answer or who agrees with the answer may sit down now. Than choose someone who is still standing to tell his or her answer and repeat the last steps. When everyone sits, you can tell your answer or opinion.

Get

up

!

Setting: Lecture, Workgroup

Spee

d d

atin

g

Setting: Workgroup, Self-study



After a lecture or practical, students are obliged to ask one question about the material AND try to answer at least one question raised by another student. This can be done with post-its (yellow for a question, pink for an answer) or on the Blackboard forum.


Divide your students in small diverse groups (5-6 students). These groups are the jigsaw groups. Divide the content of a lesson in 5-6 stand-alone segments. Give each member in the jigsaw group a segment and give them time to become familiar with it. Than form temporary expert groups by having one student from each jigsaw group join other students assigned to the same segment. They can discuss main points and rehearse presentation they will make to their jigsaw group. Bring the students back into their jigsaw groups and ask each student to present her or his segment to the group. At the end of the session, give a quiz that students have to fill in individually or give the jigsaw group a case to solve.

Jigs

aw

Setting: Workgroup

Stu

den

t-le

d r

evie

w s

essi

on

s

Setting: Lecture, Practical

1Break out

2Report

(3min/person)

3Discuss

Jigsawgroup

Expert group

Jigsawgroup

In Brightspace you can open a forum and name it after the lecture you gave. Students can post their questions and answers related to that lecture in this forum.

? !



Ask your students to summarize the key points of a lecture in writing one minute at the end of the lecture.

Variation: You can direct your students by asking questions like ‘What was the most important thing you learned during this lecture?’, ‘What important question remains unanswered?’, ‘What was the muddiest (or illuminating) point?’, ‘What other information is needed to conform or reject our hypothesis?’ and/or ‘What are the implications of our conclusions?’.


Ask your students to generate exam questions. This helps them review material and practice for the exam.

You can reward your students by making the best three questions part of the exam.

Stu

den

t ge

ner

ated

exam

qu

esti

on

s

Setting: Self-study

On

e-m

inu

te p

aper


Mentimeter can be used to collect the answers immediately or afterwards (in self-study-time) if desired. You can also ask your students to share their one-minute papers in a Brightspace forum.



Give your students a set of approximately 50 questionsvariating from easy to difficult. Students can answer these questions on any time they want to keep track of their learning progress in your course: the more questions they are able to answer, the more they learned.


A daily quiz can be one short-answer problem or multiple-choice problem asked at the beginning of the lecture, at the end of the lecture, or both. It will not be overwhelming I you keep it very short. In addition you can have students assess each other’s answers (for feedback, not for a grade).This teaching method helps students to retrieve information from their minds and it helps giving focus on important concepts.

Variation: Let students keep track of their learning process in a daily journal by asking their remaining questions about today’s lecture, or to formulate a hypothesis of tomorrow’s lecture.

Dai

ly Q

uiz

Setting: Lecture

Pro

gres

s Q

uiz

Setting: Self-study

You can ask questions via an online questionnaire that immediately gives feedback on which questions were

answered right or wrong. Brightspace can help you with this,

but there are also apps that give insight in the students’ progress, for example ‘Quizalize’. But these apps are not supported by Radboud University, so you will

probably have to pay for using these kind apps. Please contact your Faculty ICT-employee if you would like to get support on this.

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Record one or more lectures of this year’s course. You can use these recordings (weblectures) as preparatory material for the students in next year’s course. You can edit your weblecture by leaving out certain parts, or by adding some explanatory notes. In these notes you can also tell to skip parts or mention that you will go deeper on a part during the ‘real’ lecture (teaser).


At the start of your lecture or workgroup ask questions about the preparatory reading material that students had to read (or watch) on their own. This activates their knowledge on what they had to prepare.

By asking the same sort of questions on several reading quizzes, you will give students guidance as to what to look for when reading assigned texts. With questions like ‘How many µL polymerase is put in the tube?’, you are telling your students that details are important, whereas questions like ‘What happened in the tube when polymerase is added?’ highlight overall issues.

The goal can both be ‘to identify who has read the material’ (for your sake) and ‘identify what was important in their reading’ (for the student’s sake).

Rea

din

g Q

uiz

Setting: Lecture, Workgroup

Web

lect

ure

as a

way

of

flip

pin

g th

ecl

assr

oo

m




When asking a question, wait for a short period of time (at least 15 seconds) before calling on someone to answer it aloud. It is important to insist that no one raise his/her hand (or shout out the answer) before you give OK, in order to discourage the quick students to answer immediately. When the wait time is up (you can even put a visual timer on the screen) you can ask for volunteers or randomly pick a student to answer the question. Once students are in the habit of waiting after questions are asked, more students will get involved in the process.


Before students hand in their product (report/paper) for a grade, students grade and provide feedback on the product of each other based on assessment criteria (a rubric for example). After this peer-review-step the student can improve the product and hand it in to the teacher. This method improves the quality of the product and might reduce checking time. Peer feedback stimulates a critical view of students on the work of others and their own work.

Variation: When students are not familiar in giving constructive feedback, you can consider to start with an assignment on ‘how-to give feedback’ with help of an example-report.

Variation: Let students add a reflective paragraph in the product about the feedback they gave to others and the feedback they got and what they did with it. Don’t forget to assess this paragraph.

Peer

fee

db

ack

toim

pro

vea

pro

du

ct


Wai

tTi

me

Setting: Lecture

Brightspace can be used as a platform to exchange products and feedback on each other’s product. Another way of facilitating peer feedback is to provide a list of who is expected to review who.



Students create a pitch (presentation, poster, video, story etc.) on a topic or an activity. Other students watch the pitches and give feedback (review, give suggestions for improvement, rating). Giving feedback helps students to collect tips and tricks from others to improve their own work. Peer review is a method to stimulate a critical view on the work of others and their own work.


In order to promote active listening, after one student has volunteered to answer on your question, ask another student to summarize the first student's response (preferably with his/her face towards the group instead of the teacher).

Many students hear little of what their classmates have to say, waiting instead for the instructor to either correct or repeat the answer. Given the possibility of being asked to repeat a classmates' comments, most students will listen more attentively to each other.

Stu

den

t su

mm

ary

of

ano

ther

stu

den

t’s

answ

er

Setting: Lecture

Peer

rev

iew

fo

rcr

eati

vity

and

mo

tiva

tio

n


Pitch2Peer is a nice app in which students can upload their pitches and give each other feedback and awards/medals. More information: www.pitch2peer.comTrainTool is another app that facilitates feedback on video pitches. Radboud University has a license for this tool.

This method can also be done with Mentimeter. Ask a student to give an answer or explain a concept. Let other students enter keywords and show them in a word cloud or in an ‘open ended flowing grid’.

Blablablablablablablablablablablabla

Bla andbla,

blablabla



In PBL (in Dutch: Probleem Gestuurd Onderwijs/PGO) students learn about a subject through the experience of solving an open-ended problem, often while working in teams. The PBL process does not focus on problem solving with a defined solution, but allows for development of other skills and knowledge. The teacher has the role of facilitator.

This idea of PBL can be implemented in several ways, Maastricht University follows the ‘7-sprong’ teaching method: the seven steps are (1) clarification of terminology, (2) formulate the problem(s), (3) brainstorm, (4) analysis of the problem, (5) formulate learning outcomes, (6) self-study and (7) discuss learning outcomes and new knowledge.

More information on this method can be found on nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probleemgestuurd_onderwijs(Dutch).


When students work in a team, you can facilitate a professional attitude by creating peer review moments. At the end of every team session, students are asked to give feedback on the behavior of at least two team members. Questions can for example focus on the proactive or reactive attitude, the amount of questions asked or the level in which preparatory work was done. Students can write their feedback on forms that they give to you. You can hand out the forms to the corresponding student.

Peer

rev

iew

on

beh

avio

rw

hile

wo

rkin

gin

tea

ms

Setting: Workgroup

Pro

ble

m-B

ased

Lear

nin

g (P

BL)


Feedback can also be given online, for example via PeerApp. This is an app developed by Titia Meijer and others for students in Psychology on Radboud University and is expected to be available in 2018.



Students write down questions about a certain problem or theme. After five minutes, they form pairs and try to answer other’s questions. They have ten minutes to do this. New questions can be added. The pairs are then combined into groups of four. The groups briefly report on the discussions held in the previous round. Next, the group pools the information gathered and put it within the wider context of more comprehensive issues. This round lasts 20 minutes. Finally, each group of four selects a representative who is given three minutes to report on the group’s conclusions of questions during the plenary session. The information shared can be written down.


Students are given a “gapped” article. One section, such as the conclusion, has been removed from the original text. Students carefully review the article and, based on the available information, write their version of the missing paragraph. Students are then given the original (complete) article, and compare the paragraph they wrote to the original.

It is an exercise that places students in the role of the expert: students measure themselves against the author's academic qualities by throwing a critical eye at a scientific text.

Variation: Leave out a diagram or complex model that students have to generate from the text.


Sno

wb

allG

rou

ps

Setting: Workgroup

The

Gap

Art

icle



The students prepare themselves on forehand. The lesson starts with a question. If the majority of the group has it wrong, than the concept should be revisited. If the majority has it right, than only a short explanation is needed before going to the next question. However, if many students have it wrong and many are right, than a peer discussion is started. The idea is that students that know less can receive information of the students that know more. And, the other way around, students who know more are even understanding better. After this discussion, students individually answer again the question. This cycle or procedure can be displayed in the diagram above.


The students are presented with a problem that needs to be solved. Instead of thinking of a solution, the students have to draw up a disaster plan. The plan should list as many fateful decisions and counter-productive actions as possible. The lecturer gives (plenary) feedback on the collected don’t, and adds the pitfalls that professionals in actual practice often have to navigate. The plenary session is concluded by formulating a course of action and a corresponding to-do list. Than, students are given a processing assignment in which they practice dealing with similar problems following the instruction given.

Setting: Workgroup

Peer

Inst

ruct

ion

The

Dis

aste

r P

lan

Setting: Lecture, Workgroup, Self-study, Practical

Preparation (short lecture or readings)

Question (students answer individually)

<30% correct 30%-70% correct >70% correct

Peer discussion Explanation

Next question

Rev

isit

con

cep

t

Round 2

Mentimeter can be used to answer the questions and to see immediately how many students got it right or wrong.

This document provides 26 cards with activating teaching ... · use these recordings (weblectures)...

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Transcript of This document provides 26 cards with activating teaching ... · use these recordings (weblectures)...