Appendix 1: Toolkit of activity ideas

Most of these need several very different worked examples so students can see what they’re aiming for.

They will also need a set of stages to go through; so they don’t just get dumped with a task.

  1. Pretest for students to test themselves on what they already know about it
  2. Give a hook activity to raise interest
  3. Use a wiki to develop rough notes into an article (e.g. notes on handling stress)
  4. Play simulation games
  5. Case studies to be analyzed. These can become sophisticated enough to be simulations.
  6. Thought questions
  7. Discussion questions
  8. Discrimination exercises (e.g. requiring students to differentiate between examples of a principle and things that aren't examples.)
  9. Practice tasks:
  10. Design games that simulate what you're trying to teach (e.g. on-line games, group games, board games)
  11. Compile a list of hot topics, and say what’s controversial about them.
  12. Write an annotated bibliography by assigning an article to each student in the group.
  13. Use video clips of stuff-ups to write a how-to article on doing it right.
  14. Use a wiki to transform a set of open-ended questions into an article (use knowledge questions from above as a basis)
  15. Use a wiki to write a "How-to" procedure as a set of steps
  16. Write a toolkit of strategies for handling situations (like this one)
  17. Use wikis to write lesson plans
  18. Use wikis to write scenarios. More
  19. Use wikis to write procedures and flow charts.
  20. Open ended questions for forums (use knowledge questions from above as a basis)
  21. Use email groups for collaborative research projects
  22. Use a wiki for collaborative research projects
  23. Use a forum to analyse a scenario
  24. Compare two (or more) opinions
  25. Do Websearches
  26. Use a forum to discuss and clarify tasks
  27. Write a report on a task you did …
  28. Develop a glossary
  29. Develop a database (e.g. of industry contacts)
  30. Reading tasks with on-line quizzes
  31. Facebook group?
  32. Use a wiki to write FAQ on tasks
  33. Use wikis to write programmed instruction
  34. Revision activities at end of cluster
  35. Self-assessment activities at end of cluster