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Designing Engaging Learning Activities

Your instructional techniques may include such things as lectures, discussion, group work, case studies, problem examples, etc.

The goal is to help students engage with the course content to the learning level required by the objectives. Assessment activities need to test at the appropriate learning level as well.

Below are a variety of resources from which you can select the one(s) most useful to you. They are ranged in descending order from least to most detailed.

• What helps students learn? Check this University of Washington article.
• Here are some suggested teaching strategies that engage students from an online tutorial.
• The context is Geoscience, but the principles apply broadly.
• Ten Core Principles for Designing Effective Learning Environments: Insights from Brain Research and Pedagogical Theory.
• Lecture Change-ups from the University of Indiana: changes of pace to keep students engaged.
• Twenty ways to make lectures more participatory.

Keep student accessibility needs in mind as you design your course.

Online Courses

If your course is online in Blackboard, here are some techniques for using interaction in online discussion boards.

Here is an online interaction tutorial for managing online discussions.

Here is a course design rubric to guide your design if your course is online.

Contact CETL to discuss course design further.