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

34 Results

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.

Photo by Mira Kireeva from Unsplash
Social sciences

GoTestMe: Student-Generated Test Questions

In this test review activity, students create questions, exchange them with a peer, and answer each other's questions.

STEM Biology

Hemoglobin Hustle: An Adaptation of Race for the Hat

Used the Race for the Hat activity to create a Jeopardy-style session on blood & blood disorders for a pathophysiology class.

Photo by Ramon Salinero from unsplash
STEM Biology

Electron Odyssey: Journey through the Mitochondria’s Electron Transport Chain

Students play the roles of protein complexes to see how electrons, protons, and energy moves through the ETC to produce ATP.

STEM Health science

Safety First! Rank and Sort Case for Clinical Reasoning Skills

Case-based ranking & sorting activities based on pre-class quiz on exercise safety in a client with a cardiac condition.

Health science

COPD Pathophysiology: Construct One Patient Description

Create a clinical presentation for a COPD patient, linked to pathophysiology & differentiated from other COPD conditions

STEM Health science

Data Mining and Sorting: Scaffolding the Exploration of Scientific Articles

The purpose of this activity is to deepen students' understanding of cardiac pathophysiology.

STEM Biology

Don’t go NUTS: A Case Study on the Physiology of Stress

In this activity students apply their knowledge of the physiology of the stress response to a real-life research scenario.

STEM Biochemistry

Blended Learning: Just in Time

This activity benefits students by exposing them to literature in their field while preparing them for the following lecture.

Languages and Literature

Les Ateliers de Creation

In this multiple-class activity, students write three 250 texts, then learn to revise their writing based on peer feedback.

Interdisciplinary Humanities

Peer Review, Assessment & Feedback

Students gain experience with a model of writing which employs Peer Assessment as the Active Learning strategy.

STEM Chemistry

Acid Base Equilibrium

Students learn how to problem solve and review their peers in a low stakes situation (no grades).

STEM Engineering

Interrupted Case Study in Material Engineering

This activity uses real life case study examples to give students a more in-depth look at analytics.

STEM Physics

Model Building

Students learn to build a conceptual model describing a situation involving an accelerating charged particle.

STEM Biology Health science

Call Me By My Organelle

In this single-class activity, students use cards to match cells with their organelles and functions.

Social sciences

Gender Socialization throughout the Life Course

Students complete a grid that illustrates different life periods that reinforce gender narratives.

STEM Chemistry

The Matching Game

Students use a matching game to pair chemical compounds and their characteristics using a set of question cards.

Environmental science

Sustainability Development Plan (Part 1 and Part 2)

In this activity, students learn to define sustainability and apply this to a single Montreal neighbourhood. 

Photo by Luca Laurence on Unsplash
Languages and Literature

Rédaction d’un Paragraphe de Texte Expressif

In this multiple-class activity, students write a “texte expressif”, applying theory & grammatical lessons learned in class.

Languages and Literature

Pratique d’écriture

STEM Biology

A Case for Cystic Fibrosis (CF): A Québec Perspective

In this activity students take on the role of a geneticist helping an individual recently diagnosed with cystic fibrosis.

STEM Biology

Disappearing Sea Otters

Students take the role of an ecologist and try to analyze species behaviours and predict population change.

STEM Mathematics

Sketching the graph of a curve

Languages and Literature

Having Students Read and Apply Essay Feedback