Students must construct questions that are asked to other students who then answer. Alternatively, can be mixed with a guest lecture or standard Q/A session where the students must submit questions to the guest or instructor. The guest or the instructor then answers.
Students record themselves performing a task and submit this recording to the instructor. In some cases, videoconferencing may be used for synchronous events. It is also possible that an optional on-site day may be required for some procedural demonstrations, especially when materials are only available on campus. In some cases, such as medicine, off-site mentors may be used for verification and grading.
All. Typically in Music, Engineering, Mechanics, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Medicine, and Kinesthetics.
Students present a given topic to the class or a group of students typically using conferencing software.
All. Appropriate at all times, but generally past the first couple weeks of the course after the students have an understanding of the technology used in the course.
The goal of a presentation is for students to gain advanced understanding of a given concept allowing them to teach others.
Sample objectives include:
Portfolios as an activity unto themselves involves the process of student selection of works to meet specified criteria that are presented in a cohesive manner. In addition to selection and organization of the content, students generally reflect on what is included and why it was included.
Peer Editing / Review is an evaluative understanding level activity in which student judge the accuracy, credibility, value, etc. of the work of other students.
All. Appropriate at all times, but generally past the mid point of a course when the students have more content understanding. Less common in laboratory courses involving primarily group work already.
The goals of peer editing are to develop the evaluative knowledge over a given topic and a given mode of expression.
An oral report is simply the oral report of an activity done by a student. It can be either synchronous or asynchronous and may or may not be accompanied by slides.
All. Appropriate at all times, but generally past the mid point of a course when the students have more content and technology background. Obviously common in any course teaching oral discourse or language.
The idea of a literature review is for students to research a topic and prepare a report on that topic with proper citations to literature used.
The goal of a literature review is for students to develop an advanced level of knowledge about a given topic. Additional goals include knowledge of performing literature research and ability to critically review literature.
A learning contract is an agreement developed by the student and instructor providing achievement goals that the student will attain during a set period of time with a given amount of input by the instructor.
The contract itself is a way of setting goals and objectives. It can serve as a refinement of general objectives given for the course, specifying how goals will be achieved.
The instructor provides instructions.
Students conduct laboratory exercises using supplied chemicals or other materials as appropriate. Procedure and Product are then reported. In some instances, the virtual lab will not suffice, and students will attend a session on campus for the laboratory exercises physically face-to-face. In some cases, the actual lab may be semi-virtual, however, fully virtual lab exercises would be considered a simulation and are included in that activity category.
Often used in Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and related fields.