Active & Interactive Learning Workshop
1. The Goal
In my time consulting in classrooms, I noticed a pattern across many K–12 classes: students needed less solo sitting and more moving and interacting.
Getting students moving & interacting
Inspired by some creative teachers and presenters, I compiled a collection of activities, discussion protocols, and group work structures to help teachers inspire engagement into their lessons, easily and meaningfully.
Avoiding too much teacher talk
Lessons can fall into the trap of being all one mode: a teacher presents and poses questions in a volley between them and a few eager students (and an occasional reluctant kiddo who gets cold-called). Then students all work alone, or “in groups” but often without clear directions for how the group would run.
“Teacher talk and solo worksheets are not the path to student engagement.”
2. The Strategies
Catalysts for engagement
I called the activities I compiled catalysts: ingredients that could be added to any lesson to increase whole-class participation, effective student interaction, and ultimately engagement and learning.
Catalyst one-pagers
Workshop participants received a packet of 40 catalyst one-page overviews I created, including materials, directions, and notes about how to prime students, with particular consideration for the strengths and needs of autistic students.
The overviews have space for teachers to make it their own: highlighting how to incorporate group size, movement, and how to use and tweak it for their class of students.
The different catalysts came from many fantastic sources: Responsive Classroom, Alice Udvari-Solner and Paula Kluth, Pérsida and William Himmele, presenters I’ve seen at conferences, and many I made up myself!
3. The Day
A-movin’ and a-talkin’
In a full-day workshop with over 40 teachers of kindergarten to 11th grade, participants were active and interactive themselves all day. They:
explored the role of movement in learning
practiced structured discussion protocols
experienced a variety of total participation techniques, both high- and low-tech
discovered how catalysts can be inserted in many points of a lesson
Teachers identified their “clock partners” for the day
The day ended with a fun (and slightly messy) “snowball” reflection
4. The Workshop Slides
I avoid bullets and lots of text. Instead I use visuals and animation in my workshop slides to communicate concepts in a clear and engaging way.
Scroll through some sample slides or view the video below to get a feel for the look of the workshop.
Sample slides
Workshop snippet
5. The Take-away
A fun and practical day
The feedback from the workshop was overwhelmingly positive.
98.8% agreed The activities helped me actively engage with workshop content.
97.6% agreed This workshop gave me concrete ideas & strategies to incorporate into my work.
I got emails from participants afterwards with photos of their classes up and moving around and talking and sharing. One teacher wrote, “I have been using this every day and the kids loves finding their partner. The kids also liked the billboard walk. I am going to continue to try more activities this month. Your PD was so useful and helpful. Thanks again!”
“Aaron is amazing! So prepared, organized, engaging. Lots of hands-on! =) Thank you!”
I made the workshop I had needed as a teacher.
I know that I fell into the too-much-talk trap in my time in the classroom. Student engagement is critical to learning, and yet it can be challenging to figure out the how.
And of course, these catalysts are not the only approaches to engagement—the content needs to be developmentally appropriate, relevant to students, and culturally responsive and sustaining… all important topics for additional workshops!
Free sample!
Download a sample of three catalyst one-pagers
