Active Learning Activities

Active learning activities are tailored to specific learning outcomes and content. They incorporate one or more of the evidence-based strategies. Structured to expose their theoretical underpinnings, the activities can be used by practitioners and researchers alike.

Active Learning Activities

32 Results

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Applied arts

Take it Outside: A Field Trip in Three Acts

This activity serves as a field trip template to engage students with pre, during, and post-visit observations and analysis.

Applied arts

Let Me Draw You a Picture…

Students use visual thinking to diagram / illustrate a subject with the only criteria being they have expert knowledge of it.

Biology Environmental science Geography

Earth History Walk

A self-guided walk exploring how – and why – Earth changed over its 4.6 billion year history.

Photo by Ramon Salinero from unsplash
Languages and Literature

Constructive Commentary

This activity guides students through set steps and strategies to comment on their peers' creative writing.

Photo by Mira Kireeva from Unsplash
Languages and Literature

Peer Review for Beginners

This peer-review activity for English 101 aims to help students improve their essays, but also to develop evaluation skills.

Collaborative Meeting - Photo by Redd F from
Social sciences Psychology

Learning in Everyday Life

In this integrative assignment, students analyze their everyday activities through the lens of various learning theories.

Photo by NASA on Unsplash
Applied arts

From Bauhaus to Britney: A Catchall Timeline

Students map key movements in Architecture and Design alongside social, political, artistic, economic, and tech milestones.

Languages and Literature

Silent Discussion

Conduct a discussion in your class without students ever speaking a word!

Languages and Literature Interdisciplinary

It’s All in the Delivery: 6 Rounds to Effective Presentation

Groups of students orally present a poem six times, focusing on six key aspect of effective oral presentations

Health science

Mock Data Collection and Role Play for Health Disciplines In-Lab Practice

Students play the role of a client in a simulated clinical intervention to provide a more authentic context for lab practice

Health science

Rough Draft Workshop: Group Peer Assessment Jigsaw Activity for Case Study or Procedural Writing

Students bring a rough draft of a written group project for peer evaluation and feedback

STEM Physics

Controversy in the Science Classroom: Nature of Science Quiz

This activity aims to bring about conceptual change by making explicit common misconceptions about the nature of science.

Social sciences STEM Biology

Peerwise Assignment: Human Body

this activity is for students to design high level questions related to course material as a review and application exercise.

STEM Biology Health science

Case Study: Anophthalmia

Students work together to answer a patient's questions and explain how the brain is organized and how parts communicate.

STEM Biology Health science

Case Study: Malignant hyperthermia

STEM Biology Health science

Case Study: Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa

STEM Biology Health science

Case Study: Discovering the Structure of DNA

Interdisciplinary

Yeas and Nays: Using Smartphones for Gathering Data

The overall aim of this activity is to help students learn new, efficient and flexible ways to collect a variety of datasets.

Social sciences

Gender and Job Inequality

STEM Health science

Harvard Implicit Bias Test

STEM Biology Chemistry Engineering

Building Effective Teams

Social sciences History

Family HiStories of Migration

Students interview two members of their family to collect information about their family history and present it in class.

Social sciences History

Reflective Reading on Islam

Students use homework questions to prompt a deeper engagement with the reading material to generate better class discussion.

STEM Chemistry

The Index of Hydrogen Deficiency

In this activity, students review chemical bond concepts, determine structures & calculate Hydrogen Deficiency (IHD).