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TA Programs » TA Handbook » TA Handbook » In Your First Class » Helping your students gain the most out of your class

Helping your students gain the most out of your class

It is important to use a variety of instructional strategies to allow your students to actively engage with the course material in different ways. Research on teaching and learning styles has found that instructors often prefer to teach in ways that echo the way that they themselves would develop their understanding of the course material. Some of you might prefer to develop ideas by talking with others, and others might prefer to work things out on your own. Some of you would prefer to see charts, diagrams and pictures, while others prefer listening and reading. Some deal best with concrete illustrations and following an orderly sequence of facts, while others work best from principles and frameworks. And further, what works well for you in learning about one subject (say, gourmet cooking), might not work well in learning about something else (say, string theory) and so you are likely to use different approaches when learning about different things. Likewise, your students each learn and think about different things in different ways.

To help all your students gain the most from your classes, you should aim to provide opportunities for them to grapple with the ideas and material in the course in a variety of ways. Your classes should not only present information and ideas, but also provide opportunities for students to “do” and observe the processes they are learning about, as well as to reflect on and make connections with what they are learning. By presenting your material in different formats, by structuring a variety of instructional activities, especially experimentation, problem solving, and collaborative work, and by providing alternate ways of meeting course requirements, you will help more of your students achieve a deeper understanding of the course more often.

Ideas for integrating active learning in the classroom

Here are some instructional activities that you might consider using to help your students engage more actively in the course material. Further information on these and other ideas can be found at the CST Resource Library.

  • Debates
  • Practice exams
  • Problem solving
  • Brainstorming
  • Pop quizzes
  • Structured controversy
  • Idea maps
  • Writing breaks
  • Value lines
  • Simulations
  • Five minutes each way
  • Fieldwork
  • Analogies
  • Journaling
  • Critical incidents
  • Observations
  • Rhetorical questions
  • Classroom “talk show”
  • Buzz groups
  • Silent reading
  • Student presentations
  • Story telling
  • Ice breakers
  • Fishbowls
  • Fact finding
  • Student polls
  • Jigsaws
  • Think-write-pair-discuss
  • Feedback sheets
  • Film or video analysis
  • Guest speakers
  • Reading aloud
  • Interviews
  • “Truth statements”
  • Panel of experts
  • Role playing
  • Case studies
  • Oral exams

A holistic view of active learning

A holistic view of active learning

Long description of this diagram

Source: Dee Fink. Creating Significant Learning Experiences. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass Publishers, 2003. 107.

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