Tessa's Group Tutoring ActivitiesTessa Ideas for Group Tutoring Activities (from 10/28/06 e-mail)
I was brainstorming last night on ways to improve my adjunct sessions, and I came up with a fairly long list of activities groups could do to help with concepts. Some of them I thought were quite creative. Others I think I learned from the LRNA 98 class. Since I don't remember which ones I got from you and which I thought up on my own, please take credit for the ones that are yours! Anyway, I thought I'd send you the list of stuff in case it might be useful for someone else. Some of them are specific to Bio 6A, others could be adapted to different classes. Also, some of these might work for individuals.
Bubbles: Talk about how the fluid-mosaic model and the endomembrane system are similar to bubbles (1 cup water + 1/3 cup dish soap + 1/8 cup Karo syrup makes about 1 1/2 cups of good bubble fluid); it might be useful in physics? (Haven't taken it yet, so...) I do this in lieu of an ice-breaker because I really don't like ice-breakers because they feel very artificial and uncomfortable to me. Addresses: visual-image, kinesthetic, and auditory.
Kingdom Comparison: Compare characteristics across categories by putting the characteristics (either as text or images) on various index cards, shuffle, and have the students organize. Have each characteristic in a different color. The output ends up looking like a table, which makes it easier to organize the concepts mentally. I used this to compare the characteristics of 3 different kingdoms (Bacteria, Protists, Fungi), and looked at characteristics such as: means of reproduction/genetic variation, methods of obtaining energy and nutrients, ecological importance, etc. This could also work for a history or poli sci class if you took different time frames or different countries and looked at characteristics such as: economics, family life, agriculture, etc.
Addresses: visual-image, visual-text, and auditory.
Memory Plus: Instead of matching exact pictures/words, make one a definition, the other the term (or a picture of the term). Then use the terms/definitions to show a process. For instance, I used it to work with plant or fungi lifecycles, but it could also work for any sequence of events, learning terms in foreign languages, or even a math problem (maybe?) For foreign language, instead of showing a process, maybe use the terms to make a sentence.
Addresses: visual-image, visual-text, kinesthetic, and auditory.
Building: Build things out of Legos/Magnetix/K'Nex. :) Either have something built in advance, or bring Legos and have the students put something together. I'm doing this for plant transport so the students have a 3-D visual that they can touch and manipulate to get a better feel for how it all works. I'm not sure how else something like this might be applied, other than with structures of some sort.
Addresses: visual-image, and kinesthetic.
Play-Do: Use Play-Do/Floam/Silly Putty to look at structures. I do this in two places, one for looking at animal embryonic development, and I use a plastic knife to cut it in half once we've built it so the students can see what a cross-section looks like, similar to what they sketch in class. I also use it to talk about the kidney system and we build the structures and then take toothpicks labeled with the molecules being transported and stick the toothpicks in at the appropriate locations and discuss. Again, I'm not certain how this could be applied outside of a science field, but it would also work really well for chemistry concepts like valence electrons, ionization, and covalent bonding. I've used it also to show what happens with the chromosomes for mitosis/meiosis. Addresses: visual-image, visual-text, kinesthetic, and auditory.
Finger Painting: I know this sounds absurd, but I think it really appeals to kinesthetic learners. I'm thinking of using this to have students sketch pictures of what they see on microscope slides to help them prepare for a lab exam. I think turning it into a game would make it more fun. I plan to write the name of a particular slide the students will be responsible for on a slip of paper, and then fold those and have the students pull them from a hat, and try to have other people guess what they've "sketched". This would work without paints, though, too, and just drawing, or using Play-Do, etc. Addresses: visual-image, and kinesthetic.
Board work: Basic idea, but draw and label just about anything on the board. Addresses: visual-image, visual-text, and kinesthetic.
Describe the concept: One student briefly leaves the room, the remaining students vote on a concept to describe. The student returns, and the rest give clues and hints or describe the concept or process until the student who left the room figures it out. Rotate through students. This would work for any topic from events in history to a particular process to work through a math problem to any concept in science.
Addresses: auditory.
Connect the dots: This can be done verbally, written, or images. Person #1 writes/describes/draws the first step in a process, Person #2 follows up with the next step, or just something associated with what Person #1 discussed. Basically, this is just playing association.
Addresses: visual-image, visual-text, and auditory.
Memorize with your eyes: Look at a picture for 60 seconds, then describe it (written, verbally) or draw it without looking at the original. This would be particularly effective for bio lab.
Addresses: visual-image, visual-text, and auditory.
Step by step: Person #1 fills out one part of a process/concept, then hands it to his/her neighbor. Person #2 fills out the next part, and so on. Each person at the table has a slip of paper, so each student ends up working on a different part of various processes. This would work really well for history, too. The thing that works best is to have the sheet labeled in advance. For example: Who: George Washington; What: xxx; Where: xxx; When: xxx; Why: xxx; How: xxx. The students fill in the pieces with information they're supposed to know. This would also work really well for a math problem.
Addresses: visual-image, visual-text, and auditory.
Jenga: either build the tower or take the pieces away for right answers to questions. Addresses: kinesthetic, and auditory.
Art by Committee: One person closes eyes, but holds pen/pencil/marker, second person directs what they should draw and gives instruction (up, left, right, etc.) on where they need to draw.
Addresses: visual-image, kinesthetic, and auditory.
Time Capsule: Give advice to the next class, or what you would say to yourself at the beginning of the quarter.
Lift the flap: Have students put together a life-the-flap book (printer paper, glue, and scissors) again showing various parts of a process with each student doing a designated page or picking from a list of items to show the progression from one step to the next. This could be done as images or text.
Addresses: visual-image, visual-text, and kinesthetic.
Ball Bounce: Each student asks a question about the materials, then bounces the ball to a classmate. Classmate answers that question and asks his/her own, and bounces the ball to another person. No repeats and make sure the ball comes back to the first person so that everyone asks and answers one question. If the group is competetive, have the students try to come up with questions to stump the next student. Addresses: kinesthetic, and auditory.
Act it out: without using words, try to act out a process, concept, etc. so that others can figure it out. Similar to charades, but less formal. Addresses: kinesthetic.
Jigsaw Puzzle: Draw out/write out all parts of a process (or have students do this), on a single sheet of paper; cut it apart into a jigsaw and then put the pieces back together. To make it more difficult, make all pieces square. Addresses: visual-image, visual-text, and kinesthetic.
Tic-tac-toe: (or Hollywood Squares) similar to Jenga process where students answer a question to make a mark, or have a particular question (or math problem) associated with each square which the students can't see (index cards would work for this so the questions could be changed each time), or maybe in response to a question, flip over the card and determine if the card has the right answer. (The last option would need to be carefully planned and have the correct answers reinforced so students don't go away with the wrong concepts!)
Addresses: visual-text and auditory.
Twenty questions: one student thinks of a vocabulary term, and the others take turns asking 20 questions to figure out what it is.
Addresses: auditory.
Chutes and Ladders: Have a stack of questions and/or images labeled 1 through 24 (or 100, if you're feeling adventurous and want to use the original board: <http://tinyurl.com/ceeuy>http://tinyurl.com/ceeuy) and a sheet of paper made with a 4 x 6 grid also labeled 1 through 24 and various links between squares, something to use as markers, and dice. Students could even generate questions (and answers) in advance.
Addresses: visual-image, visual-text, auditory, and kinesthetic.
Construction Paper Build: Using construction paper, build structures for bio or graphs for math. Addresses: visual-image, and kinesthetic.
Field Trip around campus: Point out animals, plants, mathematics in nature (Fibonacci sequence, etc.), talk about making predictions based on what the students have learned.
Addresses: visual-image, auditory, and kinesthetic.
Not-so-Trivial Pursuit: Set up categories and multiple questions in each category. If you already had a Trivial Pursuit board, it would work wonderfully. This could work for math as well as science, history, etc. (For math, questions could be sketch the graph of y=2cos3x or solve the equation...) Pictures, diagrams, and/or descriptions could all be included. This would make for a really fantastic final review for classes with a cumulative final.
Addresses: visual-image, visual-text, auditory, and kinesthetic.
Build your own exam: Have students create questions (multiple-choice, true/false, essay) similar to the exams they will have to take (if they can make questions like the instructor, even better), and then have all students in group take the composite exam. Students can include diagrams as well. Addresses: visual-image, and visual-text.
Stump Them: Students make up open-ended questions either before or during group meeting, but make the questions as difficult and/or detailed as possible. Divide students into teams, and have them try to stump each other. Questions could include diagrams or props.
Addresses: visual-image, visual-text, auditory, and kinesthetic.
Hat trick: Put topics, questions, and or vocabulary in a hat and have students randomly draw out a slip of paper. Students must then explain in whatever fashion they see fit (verbally, visually, making something or through definition, analogy, etc.)
Addresses: visual-image, visual-text, auditory, and kinesthetic.
One of these things doesn't belong: Cheesy, yes, (here are the rest of the words: <http://tinyurl.com/y8x7qm>http://tinyurl.com/y8x7qm ) but it will get students thinking critically about similarities and differences. This can be through images, text, or representations.
Addresses: visual-image, visual-text, and kinesthetic.
Make an advertisement: Make an advertisement explaining why a concept is great or evil or necessary. Make people want to get it, or avoid it. (For instance, cell transport.) Students work on it as a whole group, someone can work on drawing, others on a slogan, others on actually putting the advertisement together, etc.
Addresses: visual-image, visual-text, and kinesthetic.
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