Innovative+Strategies

Welcome to our Innovative Teaching Strategies page. On this page, you will find quick ideas that can be modified and used during the semester. These ideas range from exit tickets to additional questions worth asking your students. Please feel free to contribute.

This short activity works well as a class opener and can be applied to multiple prompts. I used it to hold class discussions where everyone in the class could participate. Students should fill out the first 6 boxes on the handout with 6 different ideas (7-10 minutes).
 * Give and Take Opener** Posted by Omaya 5-10-16

EX: I had them read a sustainability news story as they walked in the room and write 6 pieces of information they found to be shocking/interesting/notable/new. EX: I also used this after their barriers/solutions to teaching sustainability discussion in the translation week to discuss their homework in class.

I then had them stand up and walk around the room to "take" ideas highlighted by other students to fill in the rest of their boxes. The only requirements I gave them were that one person could only give them one idea (so they would talk to multiple people) and all taken ideas could not already appear on their paper.

The classroom always bustled with discussion when I did this. I simply walked around and threw comments and responses to the things students were already talking about. Handout file below:

I brought notecards every week for students to write a parting thought to me after every class. I also had them grade their participation for the day out of 10 points. The exit ticket served many purposes:
 * Exit Ticket** Posted by Omaya 5-10-16
 * 1) It made students more mindful of their participation points as students ("I want points!") and future educators ("What constitutes as good participation?"). They really hated missing class because they couldn't give themselves points.
 * 2) I got to know my students better and faster! They could tell me when things were going on, when they had questions, their stress levels, how things were going in their internship...
 * 3) It left every class on a positive note. Students rarely told me negative things because they knew I would read their tickets. And even if certain classes were not as good as others, they had to think of something productive to tell, me and that is the idea they left the class with.

I usually left them with some sort of prompt: How would you use this lesson in your classroom? How would you make this lesson better? What questions do you still have about the final project? I always read what they wrote and would sometimes respond to their questions by email or bring up questions at the beginning of the following class.

I am posting two example cards. I used cards two weeks in a row to conserve paper (which I was sure to tell them!), so they wrote on the front and back of each card. I think the best comment I got all semester was: "I can't wait to teach sustainability in my classroom!"