Active learning, or approaches that engage students – independently or in groups – in applying, synthesizing, or evaluating ideas, have been shown to be highly effective in supporting student learning. However, some forms of such interactive learning present challenges when everyone is masked and at least three feet apart. What strategies have you used for getting your students engaged with the content and interactive in your classroom while maintaining a social distance? What tools or techniques have you adopted to overcome the physical and visual barriers of the current situation? How can we work around the challenges in this environment?

For Bring Your Best Idea sessions, we (locally) crowdsource answers to questions such as these. Please bring your best ideas for doing active learning at a social distance to this lively, collaborative, and fast-paced sharing session. At the beginning of the session, participants will have the opportunity to reflect on the theme and write a brief description of a problem or a strategy related to the theme. Anyone who has an idea to share with the whole group will have two minutes to describe it. No slides please, though a link to a handout is welcome. After 20-30 minutes of sharing ideas, we’ll shift to Q&A and discussion. Whether or not you bring an idea to share, you’ll leave this session with new food for thought and several new ideas you might try in your own course.