Activity Ideas

Check out all of the creative activity ideas you came up with at our mentor meetings! You all had some very interesting ideas and some wonderful activity names. I hope you can use this list to make your sessions interactive and fun. A few of my favorites are Review Mirror, Show and Tell, Making Variables Constant and “Miss” Box. Which ones are you going to try? Have you done any of these already? Let us know how they go!

Match Point –

Type – warm up activity

Objective – Quick recognition

Directions: Have students match equations with resulting graphs or other related concepts

Whiteout Activity –

Type – main activity

Objective – practice new concepts

Directions: This is a new version of around the world with whiteboards.

Write a problem on the big whiteboard.

Each student writes their answer on small whiteboards

Once finished, they show their answer

Students can compare answers or compete

Time Out –

Type – problem solving

Objective – Learning to seek help from your peers, practice showing your work in a clear way

Directions: each student writes a question/problem they don’t know how to solve. We’ll set a time limit for everyone to pass the questions around and solve them. Each student will start to solve the problem until the lead calls Time Out at which point they will pass it on to the next person and start solving a new problem.

Thought-provoking current article –

Type – ice breaker/warm up

Objective – pique students’ interest and get them curious about a certain topic

Directions: As an ice breaker, have students read an article before a session and share opinion at session. As a warm-up, read and discuss relevance to lecture material. Articles can be found at learning.blogs.nytimes.com

Interpret the situation as a famous scientist! –

Type – main session activity

Objective – obtain a deeper understanding of a specific theory or approach

Directions: give students example situations and ask how a certain scientist would explain it or what a certain scientist/theory would predict to happen next

Three minute reviews –

Type – Ice breaker or exam review

Objective – Students quickly discuss a question or review information with neighbor

Directions: pose a question to students to discuss briefly. After three minutes, call their attention back and get feedback from their discussion.

TPR (Total Physical Response) –

Type – main session activity

Objective – language comprehension (foreign language) à can apply to any grammar rules and is very active and gets students moving! (it could also be used for other topics that involve science processes or psych concepts)

Directions: Academic Mentor (or students) say a sentence/command in a foreign language and the students act out the sentence or command physically

Lights, camera, Learning!! –

Type – Warm up or to take a break between main activities

Objective – Tie concept into real life or illustrate a complicated topic

Directions: Find a short (no more than 3-5 minute) video to show to students. Potentially come up with discussion questions.

True/False Relay –

Type – Exam review or warm up

Objective – Practice exam like true/false questions and move around

Directions: AM comes up with a few T/F questions. Designate one side of the room as True and one as False. Students must walk to the side of the room they believe to be correct. (Can experiment with eyes closed, etc, if students appear to be copying.)

Model-go-‘round –

Type – Main activity

Objective – Help students visualize molecular geometries and learn to recognize them

Directions: Have one student build a model molecule and have a neighbor identify which geometry it is. Then, the neighbor builds a different molecule and process continues.

Make a Study Guide –

Type – Exam Review

Objective – Make a study guide that can be used to quiz students

Directions – Have students go through notes and make up questions based on the material (1-2 per page at least). Have them answer the questions thoroughly using their notes, book, lecture slides. Then, quiz them (or have students quiz each other) on the questions – ask them the questions they came up with and see if they can answer fully without referring to their guide. This could be an activity that you do at each session so by the time it gets to the exam, you have a study guide created already.

Incomplete Diagram –

Type – Main activity

Objective – learn a process or understand a figure/diagram

Directions: Create a diagram of a process or system. Have students fill in parts of the diagram that you deliberately left blank.

Pictionary –

Type – Warm up or main activity

Objective – fun way to go over vocab

Directions: Write out vocab terms on small pieces of paper (or have students write them down). Students take turns drawing the vocab terms while other students guess.

One minute ‘fix’ –

Type – post or pre exam

Objective – reflect on mistakes that are commonly made and how to avoid them

Directions: Have students do a 1-2 minute written reflection about mistakes they are making repetitively and the steps they will take to avoid them in the future.

Switcheroo –

Type – problem solving

Objective – using peers in tutoring to clarify confusing ideas/concepts through examples

Directions: Either from observation or student input, choose a problematic area for each student. Have them each make up their own question or find an example. Have the students exchange problems, set a time limit for solving and then discuss both problems as a large group.

Power Round –

Type – main activity/warm-up/closing

Objective – create an exam-like pressured environment

Directions: Create questions similar to what is expected on the exam. Provide feedback after ‘grading’ the exam. Re-use questions students got wrong in next practice exam.

1,2, Step –

Type – main activity

Objective – learn and understand sequence of events and cause and effect relationships of a topic

Directions: Draw out an elaborate diagram or process on a whiteboard or paper and have the student fill in the missing steps/enzymes/organisms/etc.

2^nd times the charm –

Type – review/closing activity

Objective – figure out strengths and weaknesses

Directions: Create a quiz based off recent material. Give quiz at beginning and then use session to address knowledge gaps. Potentially give missed problems again at end of session.

Test-ami (as in tsunami) –

Type – pre-exam

Objective – brainstorm test questions

Directions: Have students come up with a certain number of potential test questions. Then have them answer the questions (if paired/group session, students can switch questions)

Step by step –

Type – main activity

Objective – learn the general steps of a complicated problem

Directions: Write out a complex question and have the student explain to you how to do it. They must help you/tell you how to solve it step by step. The academic mentor should use as little guidance as possible and encourage the student to look up things they don’t know.

Quick Quiz Question –

Type – Closing/warm up

Objective – solidify new concepts learned during session

Directions: Have students write ‘quiz’ questions at the end of the sessions. Use these questions as warm up questions for the next session. Paired students can switch questions.

Hang Molecule –

Type – warm up

Objective – solid foundations and learning new reactions

Directions: draw a molecule or reaction. Have them guess the name based on the amount of lines provided for letters. For every time they guess incorrectly, they must draw another correctly labeled molecule.

Making variables constant –

Type – main activity

Objective – help students identify variables in word problems

Directions: Present a word problem and prepare cards with the variables. Have the students match up the information in the problem with the variable cards.

Deliberate practice –

Type – main activity

Objective – improve area that may need work

Directions: Take problems from exam or homework that students got wrong and do similar problems until the student feels confident.

Fast and Furious –

Type – main activity

Objective – get student used to timed situations

Directions: give students quizzes and time them to see how fast they can finish the quiz.

Review Mirror –

Type – post exam

Objective – Review errors on past exams

Directions: Have your student look at old exam questions that he or she got wrong. Categorize these errors into four categories (for example, reading errors, stupid errors, content error, or math error). Correct the mistakes by category, starting with the category that had the most mistakes.

Crunch time –

Type – pre exam/beginning of session

Objective – dealing with time pressure and overcoming previous mistakes

Directions: Compile questions based on common mistakes made by the student and write a short quiz.  Give them the timed quiz at the beginning of the session, or give them a longer timed test before an exam.

Flash Study –

Type – main activity

Objective – prepare and develop independent learning

Directions: Ask students to go over the material and individually make flash cards for major concepts. Then, using their flashcards, quiz them on those concepts.

Honest Hour –

Type – post-exam

Objective – reflection

Directions: After looking over the exam, both mentor and mentee write down what went well, what didn't and what improvements can be made. Then, have an open discussion about these lists.

Quick Quiz –

Type – Warm up

Objective – evaluate understanding

Directions: use material from prior session to give a quick quiz. Evaluate and address difficulties, misunderstandings and also growth and accomplishments from last session.

Scattegories. –

Type – Foreign language sentence structure

Objective – form sentences

Directions – Academic mentors would put words (in foreign language) into categories (categories would be noun, object, verb, adjective, tenses).  Students would take turns forming sentences using one word from each category

Explanation sensation! –

Type – Foreign language vocabulary practice

Objective – learn vocab and practice speaking

Directions: The academic mentor asks the student for an explanation/definition of a vocabulary word. For example:

Mentor: “Shoe” (in English)

Student: Gives explanation/definition in foreign language as well as the vocab word in that language.

One Minute Show Down –

Type – warm up

Objective – increase a student’s comfort speaking a foreign language

Directions: without warning, ask your student to deliver a one minute speech using vocabulary they’re learning that week (speech should be given in foreign language).

Where’s waldo? –

Type – main activity

Objective – sentence structure practice

Directions: Academic mentor creates various note cards with different verbs, nouns, subjects, etc. They then throw the notecards on the table and ask the students to form grammatically correct sentences with the cards.

Show and tell –

Type – warm up/opening

Objective – Stimulate thinking about the language

Directions: The student and mentor both bring a story, fact, food item, picture, or something else related to the language/culture they are studying. They must then present and describe the item to the other person.

Two wrongs don’t make a right –

Type: warm up

Objective – work on grammar

Directions: have 2 grammatically incorrect sentences and one correct sentence. Tell students to figure out which two are wrong and why.

Sing a song –

Type – opening or main activity

Objective – make grammar learning more fun

Directions: write down new lyrics (in foreign language) to a popular song in English

Study Card Shuffle –

Type – main activity

Objective – come up with potential material to go over

Directions:  students each begin with four notecards. They each write a practice question on one and pass it to the right. Then, each person who receives a notecard looks at the question on it and has to write down a question of the same study material, but a different topic on the next notecard.

Visual Aid –

Type – main activity

Objective – have students visualize abstract concepts

Directions: have students come up with their own diagrams to illustrate conceptual material. They then attempt to draw these visual aids on the board and then talk about what they are trying to represent. Other students can suggest alterations.

Reality Check –

Type – warm up

Objective – get students engaged with class material in the real world and help them think critically about class material

Directions: Bring an article containing recent class concepts and have student explain how the author uses these concepts to support their argument.

“Miss” Box –

Type – Ongoing main activity

Objective – learn from past mistakes and improve

Directions: Collect student’s mistakes and place into a box. At each session, pick one of them and have them do the problem on the whiteboard in a limited amount of time. If they made a mistake again, put it back into the miss box. If they got it right, take it out. The more mistakes they make on one problem, the more often they will have to do that problem.

Coin Flip –

Type – main activity

Objective – interactive way to learn concepts or solve problems

Directions: have mentee choose heads or tails then flip a coin. If they choose right, mentees decide either to a) do a problem (or certain activity) or b) have a mentor do the problem while the mentee explains it. If the mentee guesses wrong on the coin flip, the mentor chooses.