Decide which learning experiences will best help students achieve course learning outcomes. A mix of creative and critical thinking activities works best.
From https://wabisabilearning.com/blogs/critical-thinking/4-critical-thinking-resources
To engage students creatively, try asking students to create (with the free technology tools suggested):
- Advertisements
- Anthologies
- Audio recordings (Soundcloud or Vocaroo)
- Blog posts (Blogger or Wix)
- Book trailers (Biteable or Powtoon)
- Book covers (designed by the student)
- Comic strips (Make Beliefs Comix)
- Graphic organizer (Canva or Gliffy)
- How-to videos (Explain Everything)
- Infographics (Canva or Infogram)
- Magazines (Flipsnack or Issuu)
- Memes (ImgFlip)
- Mockumentaries
- Newscasts (Rocketium, WeVideo, BreakYourOwnNews)
- Newspapers (MakeMyNewspaper or The Fake News Generator)
- Plays
- Posters (Motivator or Movie Poster)
- Public service announcements (Biteable or Powtoon)
- Role immersion (see the book Minds on Fire : How Role-Immersion Games Transform College, available online in BYU Library)
- Storybook (Storybird or Little Bird Tales)
- Storyboards (Storyboard That)
- Text-to-speech (Acapela Box)
- Video shorts (Animoto, Biteable, Powtoon, or Vyond)
To encourage critical thinking and reflection, try assigning:
- Analytic memos
- Annotations
- Bibliographies
- Blog posts (set up a blog for your course using BYU domains)
- Book reviews (provide students with models from your field and have them imitate the style)
- Case Studies (for cultural case studies, see the book Brazilians Working With Americans, for example–free online in BYU Library database)
- Comparative essays
- Critical commentaries
- Dialogue journals
- Discussion forums (these can be done on Learning Suite or on sites like Tricider)
- Essays
- Free writes
- Journals (Google docs, Penzu)
- Letters
- Literature reviews
- Pen pals
- Peer instruction
- Play scripts (students prepare and present content to peers)
- Poems
- Portfolios (Seesaw)
- Problem solving
- Presentations
- Research papers
- Social media posts (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Edmodo, Fakebook)
- Translations