Active Learning Activities

Finding Catharsis in Film and Media

Students analyze a film or piece of media watched in the course using two concepts: climax and catharsis.

Hemoglobin Hustle: An Adaptation of Race for the Hat

Used the Race for the Hat activity to create a Jeopardy-style session on blood & blood disorders for a pathophysiology class.

Group Work Project Contracting

For instructors planning student group work projects over many weeks or months.

Taskmaster: Diction Icebreakers

These gamified activities will help sensitize students to the nuances of diction and allow them to work together.

Evolution of Sexual Reproduction: Construct a Species

Students construct a fictional animal species by selecting traits related to sexual reproduction.

Silent Discussion

Conduct a discussion in your class without students ever speaking a word!

Reimagining the Reading Quiz: Peer Instruction in English

Students do a reading quiz in class and revise their answers after developing and sharing a rationale for their choice.

Family Matters : Inclusive Genetics Pedigree

In teams, students will build a pedigree chart and determine inheritance patterns using inclusive pedigree practices.

To Pass or Not to Pass: Acting out Membrane Transport

Aim of the activity is to increase students’ understanding of molecules’ movement through the cell membrane.

Feeling Feverish: Homeostasis of Pyrexia

Peerwise Assignment: Human Body

5 Senses Lab

Les Ateliers de Creation

In this multiple-class activity, students write three 250 texts, then learn to revise their writing based on peer feedback.

Connotation Exercise: Interview and Presentation

This activity introduces basic concepts of literary analysis and interpretation.

Visual Interpretation of “The Story of an Hour”

Students learn to interpret a text and analyze a theme by creating a visual interpretation of a story.

Who are We? Class Demographics

In this icebreaker activity, students answer questions about themselves, which is included in a anonymous class profile.

Mouse Coat Colour

Activité sur les Homophones

Students pick a homophone out of a hat and are asked to first analyze and prepare a short 2 minute teaching lesson.

Fireweed and Seals, oh my! Mini Cases in Population Ecology

The Sailing Iguanas: A Mini Case in Speciation

AR’e You Talking to Me? Mini Case Study in Cell Signalling

Now you see me, Now you don’t: Fluorescent Tagging Membranes

Cytoskeletal Proteins in Amoeba

Taking the role of a biologist, students statistically determine how different drug treatments can affect amoeba cell shape.

What Numbers Tell us about Enzyme Inhibition