In-class activities are a great alternative to lecture. They help students become active learners, break up class time into manageable sections, and serve as a formative assessment, helping you evaluate what students grasp and areas where they may need more work.

• Think/pair/share – A classic! Pose a question or idea to students. Give them a minute to think about their response, then ask them to turn to a classmate and talk about what they came up with. After 2-3 minutes, ask pairs to report out to the class.

• Question of the day – Think of a question that relates to the class material and ask students to write for 2-3 minutes to get them in warmed up for the class. If you’d like, use these to spark a class discussion.
   

• Reading reflection – Ask students to write about the assigned readings for a few minutes at the beginning of class, addressing the following questions: What was new or surprising? What did you like or dislike? What did you disagree with? What do you still have questions about?
   

• Everybody knows – Put up a prompt that asks students, “What’s something that everybody knows about ____________?” Ask students to write for 2-3 minutes, then share what they came up with, and how they came to that understanding.

• Google a picture or quote relevant to the week’s reading, put it on a PowerPoint slide, and have students write about it for 3-4 minutes.
   

• Concept mapping – Write one of the main ideas of the day’s topic on the board or mapping software. Call a student up (either volunteers or at random) and ask them to add another idea, connecting it to the first. Have them explain their logic. Subsequent students may either add an idea or draw connections between those already on the board.

• This or that – Present students with a statement. Designate one side of the room as “agree” and one as “disagree.” Students move to one side of the room or the other and defend their positions, volleying back and forth between the two sides.

• Jigsaw literature – Divide students into groups of 5 and provide each group with a journal article. Ask each group to designate one student to read different parts of the article: introduction/background; methods; results; discussion; conclusion. Give the groups ~10 minutes to read their article, then give them some time to discuss the reading. Starting with the introduction/background reader, have each student summarize their section for their group, and announce that it’s time to switch to the next section every minute/90 seconds. If you have time, have each group give a short summary of their article. (The time required for this activity will vary based on article length and complexity.)

• Create an index card for each student. Half of the cards should have questions about course content, and the other half should have answers to those questions. Shuffle the cards, pass them out, and have students find their card’s match.

• Create a poll with PollEverywhere and have students text their responses. Discuss the results and how they relate to research, the students’ lives, etc.
   

• At the beginning of a new unit, create a list of statements about the topic. About half of them should be commonly-held misconceptions. Poll students on which they think are true and which are false, then review the answers, asking students to comment on why they believed a false statement was true and vice versa.
   

• Give students an index card and have them divide it into three sections: What (what did I learn?); So What (why is this important? what are the real world implications?); and Now What (how can I apply or use this information to make a difference?). Have them write for several minutes at the end of class and turn in the card as they leave.
   

• About 10-15 minutes before the end of class, depending on how in-depth you wish to make your answers, divide students into groups of four. Give them 2-3 minutes to decide as a group the most critical question they wish for you to answer about class content before they are dismissed.

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