Designing opportunities for Practice: Activity types

Activity types

The table below describes common types of learning activities used to provide active practice for learners. They are listed roughly in order of their complexity of implementation. These types were chosen for their particular relevance to teaching in meteorology and related disciplines. All of them can be implemented using Moodle capabilities.

More than Lecture or Readings
Problems, Questions, Cases and Issues	Instruction is presented around a situation, perhaps by telling a story or describing a case, rather than by providing only information. Discussion is encouraged in which students explore the situation and propose explanations or solutions, using what they’ve learned to support their positions, while the teacher provides information and ideas to expand and clarify. Instruction is limited to short, but critical information. A conclusion can summarize the ideas proposed, as well as make the key points that would have been made in a lecture on the same topic.
Demonstration	Rather than built around telling, a demonstration allows learners to see the procedures, concepts and principles in action. A demonstration can show how to use real technologies, show scientific principles through real or simulated processes, or reveal human behaviors with students or others as subjects in staged activities. When possible, demonstration is followed by practice. Field trips are also a form of demonstration, showing sites where work is conducted.

Discussion Options
Structured discussions	Discussion is used to meet specific learning outcomes, based on discussion guidelines and expected outcomes. Rules might restrict the boundaries of the topic, tell when and how to make contributions to the discussion, ask students to represent sides to an argument, require responses to a set of questions, or work toward a planned conclusion. A debate is a structured discussion with a highly specified set of rules.
Open discussions	Students are provided a direction, but empowered to freely explore a topic together. Students are encouraged to answer each other’s questions and even guide the direction of discussion. The teacher offers input only when no student can answer a question, or when it can expand or steer the discussion in a more productive direction. On the whole, when the teacher does contribute, it is more often to ask probing questions than provide information and answers.
Small group discussions	Students are divided into small discussion groups to encourage more individuals to contribute, bringing out a greater diversity of opinions. Small groups can discuss the same topic and then compare and discuss their outcomes, or discuss different topics and then teach what they discussed to the large group.
Collaborative Decision Making	Students work together in loosely structured ways to explore complex problems or issues. They collaborate in analyzing information, drawing conclusions, generating solutions and making decisions. Room is offered for creative approaches and evolving team dynamics, which also develops teamwork skills.

Focus on Practice
Practice exercises	Sets of numerous practice exercises, such as lab exercises, require the application of the procedures or cognitive skills being learned. The exercises should require practice under varying situations or conditions, and might increase in difficulty or complexity. They can include, for laboratory exercises, math problems, and other short practice exercises with objective answers.
Tutorials	The teacher provides a sequence of instructions, readings or presentations with frequent, interspersed testing and opportunities to practice what is taught. Tutorials may include individual branching based on assessment, redirecting those that need reinforcement to additional lessons, and allowing those that succeed to advance more quickly. In this way, it is personalized learning.
Case studies	Instructional case studies require students to make decisions similar to those that would be made in real-world situations. Cases should be realistic, but might be simplified to focus on specific aspects of a case or specific learning goals. Students practice using data, interpretation, analysis, decision-making, and/or communication skills.
Simulations	Instructional simulations call for authentic decision-making in realistic conditions, including representative data, tools, and time limits, and in the responses learners receive in to their decisions.
Role play	Role-play is a form of simulation in which a group of learners improvise in a scenario, taking on the roles of people in the situation with differing needs, goals, and responsibilities in order to have first-hand experience in responding in such situations. If some students are in the role of observers, they should also be given guidelines on what to watch for. The teacher sets up the scenario, establishes the roles, and helps students to debrief and reflect on the experience.
Games	Instructional games use game-tactics to heighten the learning experience through time limits, competition, and engaging and creative tasks like solving puzzles. In games, students have tasks to complete, they play by rules, and they work with the limited set of resources and tools provided. These constraints make a game fun and more comfortable than everyday life—by setting a beginning and end and by providing a level of fairness and equality through chance, while also rewarding skill. In these ways, games can be like simulations, which are often called “serious games.”

Bigger Tasks
Problem-based learning	Instead of merely using a problem to initiate learning, the teacher designs large-scale problems that provide the overarching context for learning. Problem-based learning problems might require days or weeks of planning, researching, and developing a solution. The teacher provides resources and strategies, but let’s learners create their own solutions, justify them, and reflect on the process.
Projects	Learners engage in realistic or real tasks and challenges. Projects might include research, report writing, data gathering, trying a new technique, developing a model or tool, or creating a local application.