Creating effective assignments and activities

1. Creating effective assignments and activities • What do we care about? • That students learn from the assignment/activity • That we can determine what students have learned • Design of the assignment or activity is crucial to both

2. Creating effective assignments and activities • Students learn best when: • They have a context for new knowledge and new experiences • Their interest is captured • They use what they know to tackle problems • They have the opportunity to synthesize and reflect on what they have learned

3. Task: evaluating a sample activity • How well does it promote student learning? • Could it be better, and, if so, how?

4. Task: evaluating a sample activity • Goal is to have students • Interpret the sediment record • Determine what the environment was like • Draw conclusions about the nature and timing of rainfall changes in the Sahara • Student background: they know that • Lakes accumulate sediment eroded from the surrounding areas • Sediments can preserve features that reflect the nature of the environment (e.g., fossils)

5. Task: evaluating a sample activity • Evaluate for student learning • Read the activity, paying attention to: • How the activity starts • How the activity ends • The flavor of the questions and what students are asked to do • Don’t get bogged down in the details • Discuss evaluation with group and arrive at scores for student learning only

6. Improvements and alternatives • Develop an effective preparatory assignment for homework • Set the stage more effectively with engaging questions – a “hook” • Change the questions to be less “leading” • Develop a follow-up assignment that provides an opportunity for students to reflect and synthesize

7. Improvements and alternatives • Many options for other assignment structures • Two effective structures that emphasize student analysis • Jigsaw technique • Gallery Walk

8. Jigsaw technique • Prepare several different assignments for the class • Divide class into teams • Each team prepares one of the assignments • Divide class into new groups with one member from each team • Individuals teach group what they know • Group task puts picture together

9. Value of the technique • Students must know something well enough to teach it • Gives students practice in using the language • Students can learn one aspect/example well but see a range of aspects/examples without doing all the work • Well-structured group activity

10. Critical elements of jigsaw • Students must be prepared and not be wrong-headed • You must be happy that each student knows his/her assignment well and the others much less well • The group task is crucial - without it, it’s not a jigsaw • Some type of individual follow-up is valuable

11. The Gallery Walk • Prepare several posters each with a different question, data set, or an object to observe and interpret • Hang the posters around the room • Divide the class into as many teams as there are posters • At first station, team makes observation/interpretation, writes it down • At second station, team reads existing observations/interpretations, makes additions and corrections, and adds a new one. • Back at first station, team summarizes and reports to class; class wrap-up.

12. Value of the technique • Gets students up and moving • Students can work directly with a range of examples without having to do all of the analyses on all examples • Incorporates critical analysis, synthesis, and presentation • Generates a written record of student thinking • Well-structured group activity

13. Critical elements of Gallery Walk • Topics/objects must be broad/complicated enough for multiple teams to comment • You must be happy that each student knows his/her final topic well and the others much less well • The synthesis and reporting at the end is crucial • Some type of individual follow-up is valuable