Meaningful Activities

Meaningful Activities

Here are a few ideas for some meaningful activities that you could include in your class in any modality:

• You can introduce an activity in the live portion of the class, and then have students collaborate on the activity in a shared Office 365 document during class.
  • Examples of this could include collective notes, presentations, memos or letters, a webpage, or a case study.
• Think-Pair-Share can use the Chat tool in WebEx by pairing up students during the introductions, send them to use the chat in WebEx, providing directions on how to send a chat to just one other person. They "talk" and come up with their ideas and then bring back to the live chat with the entire class. ​
• Set up a Debate in Discussions (either live or asynchronously). You will need to  script it out ahead of time, provide the expectations, then let the students go to the discussions area of Canvas to complete​.
  • Here's an in depth resource to consider: Use Online Debates to Enhance Student Engagement Links to an external site.

Make sure you're aligning your activities with the learning outcomes for your course, and any time you add a new component, you may need to streamline in another area.

Here are some ideas for activities that ask students to speak from experience or that are applicable to their everyday lives:

• Ask your students to apply what they learned in class today to some aspect of their life and write a 100 to 200 -word "report back" in the discussions or assignments (or even present in WebEx) on what they did and how it worked out.
• Ask your students to create content for an authentic audience, for instance, have them:
  • Submit a proposal to a conference and create a presentation for the conference.
  • Create an infographic on a public issue that can be shared with friends and family through social media.
  • Create a podcast on a topic you're covering in class.
  • Create a wiki compiling course information that future students of this course will use.
  • Create a video explaining a topic covered in the course, then have them share their videos with each other in a Canvas Discussion.
  • Find a job that relates to the skills gained in the course, then have them update their resume and cover letter to include the skills they've gained in your course, and have them write a reflection about this process.
  • Create group presentations and invite panels of experts (your friends and colleagues) to sit in on their presentations remotely and provide professional feedback.