Learning Activities
When designing courses it is important to ensure that learning activities support the type of learning that is to occur. For example, a traditional class was learning about motivating the workforce. I make three puzzles of equal shape and with equal sized/shape pieces. One puzzle was Maslow's theory, one was Psychological Contract and one was How to Deal with Difficult people. Divide the group up into equal teams (4 - 5 members; 3 teams), mix up the pieces and give each team equal number of pieces. Tell them that they have to form the three puzzles (give them the topic of each puzzle) but they cannot talk. They quickly learn about effective communication, team support, and motivation.
Susan
Dr. Martin,
I love this idea. Creating learning activities engages the learner and forces the learner to solve and come up with solutions to a problem. Also, completing the activity without talking allows the student to engage his or her intellectual skills and forces the student to communicate within a different environment. These types of challenges are intellectually stimulating.
One of my learning activities is to have the students compelte a one minute paper on a topic. It is amazing how much the student can come up with in a short amount of time.
Also, before each student exits my class, the student has to share one thing they learned during that class. It is the ticket out of class. It has to something that someone else has not shared.
Thank you for sharing your learning example. It is inspiring.
Freya Sullivan
