Enhancing Lectures with Interactive Activities for Engaged Learning

Enhancing Lectures with Interactive Activities Elizabeth Malcolm, PhD Associate Professor of Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences Department Coordinator, Earth & Environmental Sciences

Why Use In-class Activities? Participation by all students Active learning Engaging and fun for students Assess student learning Easy to incorporate into traditional lecture http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/interactive/index.html

How Am I Doing? Multiple choice questions embedded in presentation Clickers , or Low tech versions: colored index cards or hold up # fingers corresponding to answer choice Quickly assess student learning From assigned reading After activity or lecture on difficult concept

Think-Pair-Share Easily adaptable to a wide variety of questions and activities Pre-planned or spontaneous All students participate Instructor can walk around room assessing and offering assistance

Think-Pair-Share Examples: Write a definition of the greenhouse effect in your own words Draw a graph showing how temperature changes with height on a windy night and calm night Label the world map showing where you expect to find fine-grained lithogenous sediment, coarse-grained lithogenous sediment, and biogenous sediment Conduct a life cycle analysis for gasoline by listing all the potential environmental impacts from cradle to grave. (Half class does gasoline, half corn-ethanol & compare)

Think-Pair-Share Example: Model Prediction How much will temperatures change in the future? Model Predictions Why is there a range in the predictions? What factors will lead to different rates of warming? www.ipcc.ch

Free-Write Students write continuously for 5 min without concern for grammar/spelling In depth thinking on open ended questions Used for self-reflection or application of course content Examples: How comfortable are you with scientific writing? What are your strengths and weaknesses? Do you agree with the report that climate change should be treated as a national security threat by our government?

Demos Students make a prediction before Explain/diagram afterwards Examples: Cartesian divers (ketchup packet in soda bottle) solar bags Bernoulli wind bags air pressure mat air cannon groundwater models www.stevespanglerscience.com/

More Elaborate Activities Class discussion of an assigned article in small groups Class poster session Gallery walk/walkabout Jigsaw For examples see http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/pedagogies.html

Students Sharing Ideas Students project graph or diagram w/ document camera Students create posters w/ large post-it notes in class, stick to walls for poster session