Three Main Strategies

Classroom Learning Activities – Easy as 1, 2 3

By mixing rich technologies with effective pedagogy, you could come up with hundreds of interesting things to do with your students. The trouble is, you already have hundreds of other things to do with your students. This is why these three strategies were developed to make the best use of your precious time. We do this by targeting the core areas of critical thinking and intrinsic motivation.

1 – Daily Activities

What we do each day – or at least a few times a week – has the best chance to become a positive habit. Two habits worth developing for students of every age are the sensitivity and inclination to engage in critical and creative thinking. In addition, by supporting learner autonomy and competence within a caring and engaging culture, we set a foundation for intrinsic motivation. These two goals of Thinking and Motivation are supported through Learning 2 Look activities. In brief, Learning 2 Look activities project rich Web resources so that the entire class can explore them together. This allows for prompting critical thinking and modeling the subtle traits of sensitivity and inclination.

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2 – Weekly Activities

For an activity to become something we do regularly, it helps to build a process into weekly routines of the classroom. By setting up a ClassPortal, educators equip their learners with abundant opportunities to engage in related content while also extending topics in the directions of their own personal interests. The most effective way to achieve this collection of resources and communication tools is to set up an online space just for your students. This is easily done using blogs or private social networks. Developing such a space is worth the effort when you see how it can alter the life of the classroom.

3 – WebQuests

ClassPortals are great for developing “habits of mind” and deep learning on a complex topic.  However, student participation in ClassPortals is largely based on personal interest and choice.  Sometimes it’s important for students to tackle specific content and skills that require critical thinking, problem solving or innovation.  When  “intentional” higher order learning is the goal, then a WebQuest is the preferred strategy.  The WebQuest process scaffolds many aspects of sophisticated thinking displayed by experts in a field, but unknown to most novices.