Presenter:
Carole Shook, University of Arkansas
Description:
In today's classrooms, students have high expectations of being actively engaged. This engagement can be achieved through creating opportunities for participation.
Participation can take many forms. Students can be engaged in a variety of games, such as: Accounting Fear Factor, Bingo, Accounting Family Feud, Jeopardy, and Pictionary. These make fun, unique learning experiences.
To decide who's next to speak, different classroom activities can include tossing a nerf ball, drawing playing cards, and rolling dice. With these techniques students don't feel nervous.
Some students may not be participating due to anxiety. Ideas can be solicited through learning partners, think-pair-share activities, response cards, and surveys. These activities allow students to check ideas with others to gain confidence.
Activities that engage students don't have to be time-consuming in preparation or class time. Additional ideas include panels, fish bowls, beach ball tosses, "test" questions, index card matches, and critic's corner for video watching. These techniques create active ways to learn that may have been presented in a more traditional manner in the past.
Participants of the session will receive "how-to" handouts of ideas and will immediately be able to apply participation techniques to increase student enthusiasm and retention of materials.
