Active Learning Activities

Drawing to Learn: Doing Science is more Complex that You Think

Students draw a diagram of how they think scientists "do science." These are improved then compared with an expert diagram.

Two-stage Testing for Second-year Math Students

Students are given four 2-stage tests throughout a semester; 1st stage written individually, 2nd students work in groups.

Running on Water: Activating Prior Knowledge of Static Equilibrium

Students watch, discuss, then analyze the veracity of a video in which hydrophobic shoes allow people to run on water.

Crossing Dimensions: A Math Odyssey into Cross Products

In groups, students learn about orthogonality and cross products by creating geometrical shapes.

Decoding Decimal, Binary & Octal: Number System Adventures

In teams, students explore the binary number system and create parameters for an octal number system.

Mechanics in Motion: Iterative GIF Creation

In groups, students create GIFs to demonstrate and explain how mechanic principles apply in real-life scenarios.

Nature of Science Ice-Breaker

A first class ice-breaker activity introducing the nature of science.

Card Sorting Activities for Mechanics

Real-World Physics: Mini Video Projects

These mini-video projects require students to engage with course concepts and make connections to the world in which we live.

Controversy in the Science Classroom: Nature of Science Quiz

Physics Worksheet Based Activity

The aim of the activity is the application of concepts and math to solve complex problems.

Preparation for Future Learning: Electric Flux

An Abundance of Bells

How to Write Reading Annotations

This activity helps students improve their quality of reading annotations using platforms like Perusall.

Instructional Survey

The aim of this activity is to provide students with an overview of survey design and execution.

Two Stage Quiz

This activity gives the students the opportunity to talk about the concepts seen in class and to discuss with their peers.

Group Problem Solving with Show and Tell

Students learn to build a conceptual model describing a Mechanics-based situation and practice mathematical problem-solving.

Live Demonstrations of Beats and Interference of Sound

In this activity, students learn to apply the principal of superposition to two new sound contexts.

Model Building

Students learn to build a conceptual model describing a situation involving an accelerating charged particle.

Circuits: Card Sorting With Multiple Representations (E&M)

Students develop their ability to reason about physics concepts in terms of multiple representations, beyond just equations.

Electrostatics: Card Sorting With Mutiple Representations (E&M)

Students associate configurations of charges with their characteristics from word, diagram & graph representations.

Vénus d’Ille: Police Enquiry

This activity has students challenge the literal meaning of a text (ie. the supernatural explanation for a murder).

Sustainability Development Plan (Part 1 and Part 2)

In this activity, students learn to define sustainability and apply this to a single Montreal neighbourhood. 

Understanding Agro-Ecosystems by Observing, Writing & Discussing

In this semester-long activity, students visit a farm several times to engage in a critical analysis of that ecosystem.