5 easy interactive classroom activities to boost student engagement

Are you on the lookout for ways to make your classes more dynamic and want to try out interactive activities during your lessons, but fear of change, difficulties in implementing new teaching methods (engaging games, quizzes, videos, group activities) or technological barriers are keeping you from doing it?

Wooclap is here to help! Solutions DO exist, you just need to look at the bright side and take one step at a time. Here’s our full guide to set up interactive classroom activities to motivate your students and make learning more fun! As one might say, work hard, play hard!

The advantages of an interactive classroom

A definition of interactivity

According to researchers Lise Chovino and François Dallaire, interactivity is “the process of reciprocal communication between the teacher and a group of students or between students themselves.” It “is also defined by the use of technologies that allow feedback.”

Interactivity encourages students to play an active role in class (versus a more passive one) and engage themselves in their learning process via games, quizzes, open questions, etc. In our current digital society –where social media and videogames can be a constant distraction– this form of engagement is much welcome to help students (children, teenagers or adults) stay focused and learn.

The advantages of interactivity

Research (including that of L. Chovino and F. Dallaire quoted earlier) shows that interactivity has several advantages:

• It fosters better memorisation of concepts within a specific topic;
• it keeps students focused and promotes classroom engagement and learning;
• it allows assessing knowledge, understanding of certain concepts and skill learning;
• it covers the needs of different teaching styles;
• it improves peer collaboration and fosters teamwork within a group of students;
• it promotes learning and developing complex skills (for example: communication skills, problem solving skills, teamwork, time management…).

Another research lead in Mondragon University focused on Wooclap’s impact on learning and give us a deeper insight into interactivity’s importance for learning as:

• 73% of students agree that feedback on each question helps them learn better;
• nearly 66% believe that the lecturer’s feedback on each question increases engagement, underscoring the value of interactive learning;
• 88% of students confirm that using Wooclap enhances their understanding of the topics covered;
• and over 60% of students agree that learning through Wooclap enhances their understanding, highlighting the effectiveness of direct engagement and feedback.

How to implement a successful interactive activity

Want to give it a try? No problem. Here are a few tips and best practices that will help you successfully implement interactive classroom activities and step up your interactivity game!

• Plan ahead the different steps of your activity, especially on those first occasions. In order to do so, set up a retroplanning, check that you have all the necessary material, and on D-Day, keep a close eye on your watch to regularly check the time.
• Take it step by step: start with quick and easy activities (games or quizzes, for example). See how things go, and make sure your students get used to the process before aiming for more complex activities.
• Once you’ve mastered interactive activities, diversify the approaches and teaching strategies depending on the lesson!
• Use technologies and get hold of the right tools: digital and online platforms are of great help to create interactive media. Wooclap offers a wide range of options such as tests/quizzes, word clouds or brainstorming technologies.

Want to use technology for interactive classroom activities? Try out Wooclap

5 simple and efficient interactive activities for your classroom

The icebreaker: paper airplanes

Nothing works better than an icebreaker activity to get started in interactivity and begin a class in a nice, dynamic way!

You may start the lesson with a simple yet original icebreaker question, such as: “What is the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?”, to foster student participation and make them feel confident. Short games, such as paper airplanes, are also a possibility for more action and engagement.

Now, here’s an idea to give a fun twist to the activity. Ask each student to write down a question about the previous lesson on a sheet of paper, and then make a paper airplane with it. Next, they have to throw the plane for another student to catch it. Each student has to listen to their partner’s response. Such a great way to revise everything learned in the previous lesson!

Quiz tests

Quiz tests are a great way to assess your students’ knowledge acquisition, understanding of concepts and learning. You may start your lessons with one, as a fun  way to reinforce students’ main difficulties, or leave it for the end.

Creating a quiz test thanks to a digital tool allows for making questionnaires interactive, by showgiving your students feedback in real time. Use Wooclap to create a test with visual media on Asia’s fauna, and provide responses live to go through them in class.

This will turn online learning into a fun and efficient experience!

Polls

Polls allow you to obtain your students’ opinions, and are particularly effective to compare their points of view. Thanks to a well-adapted tool, you –and your fellow teachers– can guide your students through this interactive process, to provide a framework for their thoughts and ideas, and offer them support.

Example: Poll about their perception of a character

After reading a text, choose your collaborative tool to create a poll with the following question: “What did you think of the main character?” Instead of open questions, you may also provide several responses, to guide those students who reply with monosyllables, letting each student vote for their response and asking for further explanations later on (in order to engage them in a discussion or a debate).

Image brainstorming

Brainstorming is one of the best ways to share ideas and foster cooperation among your students. This promotes higher engagement in their learning process.

Example : Image brainstorming

During a History of Art class or an image analysis, show your students a painting or a photograph. Wooclap has a Brainstorming option that allows proposing several clues towards interpreting an image. Each student (or group of students) then chooses one of those clues and develops that hypothesis with their own comments and ideas.

All answers are then shared on the screen, and every participant’s or group’s comments are discussed with the rest of the class!

Collaborative work in groups

Make small groups of students to allow them to interact in pairs and compare their points of view. Choosing the right size (in pairs, or 4-5 people maximum) helps the teacher reduce student passivity: everyone plays an active role in the group.

Example: philosophical chairs

An ideal activity for debate topics, such as philosophy, civic education or history, since this exercise requires students to reflect on the topic and defend their opinion.

The teacher provides an affirmation and asks students whether they agree or disagree. (Example: all cultures are not equal). Depending on their answer, students must walk to one side or another of the classroom.

Once everyone is in place, pairs can be formed sitting on chairs facing each other, to encourage students to talk. Another option is to ask students to directly explain their opinion in front of the group (if students are used to this type of exercise, of course).