What do we do in class? Engaging Activities

Personalized Learning Tips: Edutopia

From http://teachamazing.com/8-tips-to-spice-up-a-flipped-classroom/

"Students will tell you that they get tired of doing the same thing day after day. They especially dislike listening to teachers stand at the board and talk. Therefore, it is important to change things up. Here are a few ways to do that.

Self Teaching Days – not all video watching needs to be done out of class. Assign a topic and set them loose in a few of your approved websites. You’ll be amazed at what they find. Be sure to save some time for discussion.
Game Days – Review vocabulary or previous concepts. Choose a few games you enjoy and bring them out every couple of weeks. Don’t use the same one all year though.
Work Days – Use online quizzes that give immediate feedback. That way they know if they are getting it or not. Make sure you circulate a lot on those days to keep an eye on their computers and answer questions.
Talk Days – Give them some days to share things they are learning, ask questions, and maybe even a bit of old fashioned direct instruction. Listening to one another and analyzing each other’s work can be one of the most powerful tools for all.
Special Days – Find fun ways to kick off a unit or celebrate some successes they’ve had along the way.
Project Days – Give them a little time to work on some project based learning. This is where you really see if they are learning and growing.
Quiet Days – Sometimes students need to just work on their own with very limited interactions. Activities that take a lot of thinking are good days to set the noise level to zero.
Formal Assessment Days – Keep these assessments short, but give them often. Give the students a chance to learn from their mistakes and re-take another version later on. Focusing on just one standard at a time helps the students know how to study and makes the process less stressful than a huge end of the unit assessment."

Student Groupings

Finally, keep your groupings in mind. Sometimes let them choose who they sit by and work with and sometimes choose for them. Base your groupings on different criteria. Take them out of their comfort zone some, but also let them have some responsibility in choosing for themselves and keeping the privilege. This simple tool provides more buy in, better engagement, and easier classroom management."

Activity Title:

Discussion activities

Packet of Problems

Activity Choice

6 Ways to Blend, 7 Ways to Flip

Blended - Class Rotation

Blended- Individual Rotation

Blended - Flex

Blended - aLa Carte

Blended - Lab Rotation

Flipped Classroom

Adventure Learning

Challenge Based Learning

Mastery Learning

Inquiry Based Learning

Project Based Learning

Universal Design 4 Learning

Design Thinking

Description:

Activities:

Discussion activities

Organized discussion activities are frequently used in flipped learning environments to facilitate peer-to-peer exchanges and a deeper engagement with the course content. Many effective discussion activities:

Begin with thoughtful questions, anecdotes, illustrative quotes, current events, or controversial statements about the lecture videos and/or readings viewed outside of class
Are well-structured and organized beforehand

Set clear expectations for participation and civility

The Circle of Voices Activity

Steps:

Pose a question, read a passage, make a statement, etc., that relates to the course content.
Ask students to form groups of 4-5.
Allow students a few minutes of group time to organize their thoughts.
Give each student three minutes of uninterrupted time to respond to what was proposed in step one
After everyone in the circle has had their three minutes, the discussion is opened up with the following ground rule: students are only allowed to talk only about other people’s ideas, not expand on their own ideas (unless asked a direct question).

Circular Response Activity

There are six ground rules in this activity:

No one may be interrupted while speaking.
No one may speak out of turn in the circle.
Each person is allowed only three minutes to speak.
Each person must begin by paraphrasing the comments of the previous discussant.
Each person, in all comments, must strive to show how his or her remarks relate to the comments of the previous discussant.
After each discussant, the floor is open for general reactions (can be timed or not).

Socratic Seminar - (Similar to Circle of Voices)

Process:

1. 5-10 minutes - overview concepts that students did not understand.

2. break into groups to solve packet of questions/problems

3. have videos available for those who need them

4. use peer-to-peer leaders as helpers

Teacher walks around room, offering help or asking challenging questions:

Packet of Problems

A very simple engaged learning activity is to give students a packet of problems to solve in class.

Use video screencasts to assist students, peer-to-peer leaders as helpers

Basic Math

Science Inquiry

Can you walk me through the steps you took to get to this answer?
Why do you think that?
20 minutes at end: solve packet problems- teacher or student group walkthrough solutions or answer questions
10 minutes - open discussion on "interesting" things that relate to class or lesson

Stillwater School District, Stillwater, MN

Math Grade 4

How teacher implemented Flipped Classroom and uses Activity choice in the classroom.