Active Learning Activities

Editing Exercise: Mock Academic Conference

Research, writing & editing activity that builds interpretive skills and the ability to incorporate research.

Taskmaster: Diction Icebreakers

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

Find Someone Who… An Icebreaker With Purpose

In this activity, students try to find someone for each list item. Items highlight key issues explored in the course.

Decoding Decimal, Binary & Octal: Number System Adventures

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

Snowball Starter: Goals of Science Education

In this activity, the snowball strategy links students' prior beliefs to a deeper inquiry of science education goals.

Cross-Disciplinary Synergy 101: Uniting Expertise for Success

In teams, students interact, share information on their profession, and create cases where each discipline is needed

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.

Don’t go NUTS: A Case Study on the Physiology of Stress

Feeling Feverish: Homeostasis of Pyrexia

Harvard Implicit Bias Test

Vénus d’Ille: Police Enquiry

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

Rock Paper Scissors Lizard

Disappearing Sea Otters

Students take the role of an ecologist and try to analyze species behaviours and predict population change.

Rhetorical Strategies

Darwin’s Finches: Natural Selection

In this game-based activity, students learn about natural selection, evolution of traits, and data collection and analysis.  

How to Read a Research Article

Students learn how to read a research article and what information is contained in each section of the article.

Cycles of Matter

Muscle Snowballs