instructor helping student with an experiment

Preparing Activities

Purposes for Learning Activities

Before developing a learning activity, you must determine its purpose. This will help you decide the appropriate type of activity to create. Forsyth, Jolliffe & Stevens (1999) list four activity purposes:

Passing on information
Show examples or illustrations of the new information and how it works
Give the learners experience by working through an example of the information at work
Place the learners in hands-on situations and require them to demonstrate their abilities with the new information

These four purposes range from passive to active learning situations, vary in the number of learners that might participate in related activities, and suggest different roles for instructor involvement. You will find that considering these factors, as well as your learners' characteristics and your expected learning outcomes, will lead you to develop specific activities that cover all the bases.

Passing on information

Providing workbook activities and research exercises, in addition to your lecture notes, handouts and presentations, will give students access to additional information from or about each class session. You may make some or all of these items available to students both online and in print. Consider student access to the information when deciding how to make it available.

How you develop presentation visuals and handouts is as important as the content itself. If students with different learning styles cannot access the information, then you are not meeting their needs.

collage of students working on activities in class and out of class

The following tips demonstrate ways to accommodate learners' needs when developing instructional activities

Include appropriate graphics, charts animations and other visual cues to highlight key points as students go through a sea of text.
Chunk information into manageable pieces.
Organize information into a logical sequence.

To "pass on information" does not always mean that students must sit passively to receive a transmission. You may also construct learning activities that put students in the driver's seat with respect to finding and encoding information. By encouraging the students to be active learners, you change your role from the sole information provider to a primary information resource among several. Your responsibilities in this new role include acting as a model, creating environments that support active learning, providing opportunities for collaboration and providing support to students. This can also be described as a shift from a "teacher-centered" to a "student-centered" learning model. (See also Teaching Styles module.)

Examples of activities that encourage active learning:

Modify presentations or lectures to provide more interactivity opportunities, such as using "buzz groups".
Prepare self-assessment activities, such as non-graded quizzes, to help students determine if they are finding the information that you want them to learn (i.e., information that helps them meet course objectives).

Show examples or illustrations

Examples provide contextual clues for the learners. One strategy is to provide examples for your students to review before a class meeting. They will be able to work at their own pace and will be prepared for your presentation about the underlying concept. Refer to the examples during the class presentation to show their relationship to the course material.

Other ways to illustrate key points include video presentations and problem-based lectures. Again, you may require the students to check out and watch a video before class, so that they will be prepared for a presentation or small group discussion about the topic and how it relates to the course material. Problem-based lectures allow you to model the process of solving a problem, including how to determine which process to use. Demonstrating the ramifications of choosing the wrong problem-solving methodologies can be as effective as showing the correct method.

Give the learners experience with examples

Students must go through the process of working through examples, examining case studies, and engaging in problem-based learning. It is as important to students' learning as asking questions or attending class sessions. Here are some examples of activities that give students experience:

Computer-based simulations also allow students to go through a process and see the results of their actions. In some cases, like chemistry, it may even be preferable to have students practice virtually, as results can be explosive, smelly, or otherwise undesirable. In other cases, like medicine, it may allow students to perform an activity without resources that are difficult to obtain, such as a cadaver or live human patient. Go through each simulation yourself first, to determine how effective it is, to prepare yourself to answer students' questions and to prepare for class discussions about how it differs from reality.

Place the learners in hands-on situations

Beyond computer-based or paper-based exposure to examples, students also need realistic, hands-on experience. Facilitate experiential learning situations, such as lab activities, workshops, field observations or experience, role play activities and community service learning. As the students are making a mental shift from theoretical to practical, give them as much time as possible to accomplish the objectives for each activity.

When you set up or create a hands-on activity, make sure you calculate how much time it will take students to successfully finish. Students have different levels of familiarity and/or comfort with equipment and concepts, which will affect how quickly they can progress through the exercises. While self-paced activities are preferable, they may not be possible in a scheduled lab session. To circumvent this obstacle, try to provide opportunities for students to work in the lab outside normal class time.

In addition to time, you must consider resources when creating a hands-on activity. If students will need to share materials and/or equipment, then plan to provide enough time for everyone to perform the activity.