Engaging Learning Activities

LEARN: What and Why

In conjunction with deciding which resources and methods for delivering content to students, you also need to choose which types of learning activities – or strategies for enabling students to engage and do something with the new material – you will utilize in your course. Learning activities allow students to digest, interact and ask questions about new concepts and information presented.

The activities (and technology used to complete them) should have a sound pedagogical purpose. They should help students achieve the learning objectives of the class/course – and prepare them to complete and demonstrate their knowledge and skills on higher-stakes assessments (Wiggins & McTighe, 2012).

Determining Materials and Activities: Step 3 of Backwards Design (UBD)
(Wiggins & McTighe, 2012)

Backwards design steps

In addition to helping students learn the course concepts, learning activities can facilitate interaction among students and between students and the instructor, thus building the online course community. Indeed, the instructor can and should participate in the learning activities, such as guided discussion forums, to interact with students and provide critical information/insights.

Learning activities also have a similar purpose to formative assessment in that they provide the instructor with information on students’ current progress in the course and understanding of key concepts and skills.

ENGAGE: How to do it

Guidelines for Creating and Facilitating Learning Activities

Align the learning activities with course learning objectives and assessments

Ensure that the participation in the activities will help students meet a learning objective of the course and prepare them to complete assessments (Wiggins & McTighe, 2012).

Choose technology that best supports the learning goal

Engaging learning activities in online courses do NOT require complex, flashy technology tools
Use tech to facilitate human-human interaction and student-content engagement.

Use a variety of individual, small group and whole class activities
- Many learning activities can be adapted to be collaborative or individualistic
- Students vary in their preference of working alone or collaboratively, and there are skills to be learned from both—so use a mix of these approaches
Use examples and guidelines to help set expectations
- Provide models of what you hope students to do wherever possible. Models often communication expectations more clearly than guidelines (Teacherstream, 2010)
- Where an activity is being graded, rubrics can also help (Brown)
Ensure activities and technology are accessible and equitable
- Ensure you establish activities that everyone can participate in regardless of any disability, access to technology, time restrictions, etc.
Moderate and provide guidance
- Actively participate in learning activities, where possible
- If individual students are participating inappropriately, dominating learning activities or not actively participating, privately reach out to them (Teacherstream, 2010)

APPLY to your course

Common Online Learning Activities and Tools

There are several activities and technologies that can be used for students to engage in the learning process – individually or collaboratively, synchronously or asynchronously. As you may notice, several of these activities are similar to formative assessment techniques, as they both have goals of helping students interact with the materials, each other and the instructor – as well as provide the instructor important information about students’ current understanding of course concepts.

Learning Activity	Description/Purpose	UMass Supported Tools
Surveys/Polls	An informal single/multiple-choice activity that can be used to gather information from students about their understanding of or questions about course topics	Zoom polls, iclicker, Google Form
Brainstorming/Mind-mapping	Individual, small group or whole class brainstorming or mind/concept- mapping can help activate prior knowledge, draw connections among course concepts, think creatively and plan for projects, etc.	Canvas Discussions VoiceThread/VT Doodle Board
Reflection	Students evaluate their own work and progress using guided questions, the assignment rubric, etc.	Journals/ Canvas Discussions
Guided Discussions (written/video/audio)	Instructors provide effective, clear, high-order thinking questions to begin a class discussion topic. They moderate and provide constructive feedback throughout. See Mastering online discussion board facilitation for more tips.	Canvas Discussions (whole class or small group) VoiceThread Zoom
Reading/Watching Guided Questions	Students are provided with structured questions to answer as they read or watch something, individually or collaboratively.	For small group, interactive reading/watching: Google Drive Perusall
Problem Sets	Students are given several exercises or ‘problems’ based on material already covered by the instructor. They work to solve the problems individually or collaboratively	Group discussion boards/forums Google Drive tools
Case Study	Students examine a real-life example of a course/field-related topic. They make comments, predictions, conclusions, and/or further questions.	Google Docs Group Blog area
Structured Debates	Students are assigned or choose a side of a controversial course topic, a fixed time to present their position, and speaking order in the debate. Debate can be done synchronously or asynchronously.	Zoom VoiceThread Discussion Boards
Peer Review	∙ Students evaluate each other’s work; expectation guidelines and rubrics are useful in this process. ∙ Tips for conducting peer review in online courses (Brown) and Nicol et al.’s (2014) article on Peer Review	∙ Use the peer review feature in Canvas Assignments or Canvas Discussions or Turnitin to conduct peer review For tips on setting up groups: group activities
Students as teachers	Students tasked with teaching the class about some aspect of the course, using a teaching ‘platform’ or format that they choose; they have to ensure their fellow students understand the material	Echo360 VoiceThread Zoom/polls iclicker

Creative CATs

In addition to traditional, common assessment approaches, you may want to consider more creative ways of gathering information from students about their progress and development. CATs, or Classroom Assessment Techniques, designed by Angelo and Cross (1993), can help instructors reconsider their approaches to assessment and incorporate a variety of methods into their course—thus also complying with UDL principles. The chart below highlights some of the 50 tested assessment techniques that are useful in the online teaching format (see the University of California San Diego’s full description of 50 CATs here).

Another excellent resource for CATs is a series of videos and resources sortable by teaching environment, activity type, and teaching problem: see the K. Patricia Cross Academy Techniques Video Library.

Review, Reflect & Revise

Review your course, asking:

Do your learning objectives, assessments, learning activities align?

Do your current learning activities utilize the most appropriate approaches for helping students achieve particular learning goals?
Are they accessible?
Do they utilize principles of Universal Design for Learning?
Do you have variety in learning activities and individual/collaborative tasks?

References & Resources

Angelo, T. A., & Cross, K. P. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Bergquist, E., & Holbeck, R. (2014). Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Conceptual Model for CATs in the Online Classroom. Journal of Instructional Research, 3, 3-7.

Brown University. Designing Grading Rubrics.

Douglas, T. A., Mather, C. A., Earwaker, L. A., James, A. J., & Murray, S. L. (2020). Supporting digital engagement: an evaluation of the use of a Guide for effective development and facilitation of online discussion boards. Journal of Applied Learning & Teaching, 3(1), 1-10.

The K. Patricia Cross Academy. Techniques Video Library.

TeacherStream LLC. (2010). Mastering online discussion board facilitation.

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

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