Techniques Video Library

An Advance Organizer is a tool that professors can present to students prior to a lecture to help them structure the information they are about to learn.

A Background Knowledge Probe is a short, simple, focused questionnaire that students fill out at the beginning of a course or start of a new unit that helps teachers identify the best starting point for the class as a whole.

In an Online Resource Scavenger Hunt, students use the Internet to engage in fact-finding and information processing exercises using instructor-specified library and Internet sources.

In Letters, students assume the identity of an important person in your discipline and write a letter explaining their thoughts on an issue, theory, or controversy to another famous person who holds a different perspective.

For a Class Book, individual students work together to plan and ultimately submit a scholarly essay or research paper. Then all students’ papers are published together.

In a Think-Pair-Share, the instructor poses a question, gives students a few minutes to think about a response, and then asks students to share their ideas with a partner. Hence Think-Pair-Share.

In Affinity Grouping, individual students generate ideas and identify common themes. Then, students form groups to sort and organize the ideas accordingly.

Individual Readiness Assurance Tests are closed-book quizzes that students complete after an out-of-class reading, video, or other homework assignment.

In Think-Aloud-Pair Problem Solving (or TAPPS for short), students take turns solving problems aloud while a peer listens and provides feedback.

In a Briefing Paper, students research a current problem of their choice, summarize the main issues, and present solutions to a specific audience.

In Sentence Stem Predictions (SSP), the professor presents a partial sentence that is structured to prompt students to predict select aspects of the upcoming lecture.