04 Apr Charades Race for Review and Formative Assessment
Excerpt from the Inspired Educator Blog Archives: Back in 2011 I shared this activity here as a favorite strategy for harnessing the power of play to teach, review, and reinforce academic or training content. It has continued to be a favorite active review and even...
07 Sep Another Brain-Friendly Strategy for Blending Community Building, Academic Review and Social-Emotional Learning: Charades Race
This time of year many of us are returning to the classroom or kicking off training programs. We often start by facilitating community/team building activities with groups to build positive rapport and buy in as they start the semester, training or course. As the program or school year progresses the pressure to reinforce and assess academic content increases and sometimes the focus on group work, social skills development and team-building goals gets moved to the “back burner”. I encourage educators to think of blending together academic, social-emotional, and group building/school climate goals throughout their whole curriculum or program...
14 Mar From the Archives: “Bag of Nouns” for Review, Formative Assessment, and Fun
I was inspired to repost this article from the blog archives (August of 2014) after using it in a particularly successful active review session with a group of students today. It is one my favorites to use with learners of all ages for blending active review and formative assessment with group building and social-emotional learning. Many of the inspired educators that I work with have shared variations of this playful party game for active review and formative assessment in the classroom or training sessions. Similarly to Play Dough Pictionary and Charades Race “Bag of Nouns” doubles as a playful group building and reinforcement of training or academic content.
08 Feb Harnessing the Power of Play
Never underestimate the power of play in learning! Play is a serious subject. There is a great deal of research on play and what constitutes true play, types of play, and stages of play. My working definition of playful learning involves engaging learners in educational activities, games, and creative group-building experiences that are:intrinsically motivating, inspiring ownership and choice on the part of learners with freedom to experiment within a safe and inclusive space engaging and active, including movement, social interaction, and use of multiple senses...
20 Nov Cultivating Appreciation, Celebration, and Gratitude All Year Long | Favorite Activities and Reflective Prompts
Gratitude is a reflective act, practice, and attitude that I try to weave into my workshop sessions and classes all year round. This can range from simple gratitude-centered conversation starters and reflection prompts during community and rapport-building activities like Handshake Mingle or Concentric Circles such...
09 Jun Optimistic Closing Activities to Celebrate, Reflect, and Connect to Future Learning
This post offers engaging reflection techniques to make the most of end of program/end of school year moments with optimistic endings that cultivate lasting lessons: As readers of this blog know, I am passionate about the practice of reflection and the importance of intentionally weaving...
03 Sep Start the School Year Off With Strategies to Build Community and Enhance Engagement and Ownership of Learning
Taking the time to welcome students back to school and help them build a positive and productive learning community is more important now than ever before. Over the past month, I have been working with schools across the country who are intentionally building in more...
08 Mar Choice-Centered Breakout Rooms to Increase Engagement and Ownership of Learning
Facilitating a sense of choice, control, and ownership from the very start of learning and group experiences is fundamental to maximizing engagement and buy-in. In past posts, I’ve shared about this principle and ideas for cultivating it (see “Make Thoughtful Activity Choices” and “Setting the...
23 Oct October Newsletter: Re-Imagining Meaningful Engagement, Social and Emotional Learning and Community Building
When my travels to facilitate professional development came to an abrupt halt in March, I couldn’t imagine how I would bring my experiential facilitation, teaching, social and emotional learning, and teambuilding practice online. Before that time, I had turned down offers to facilitate online professional...
02 Apr Integrating Community-Building, Social and Emotional Learning, and Academic Content
The teachers, corporate trainers, high school advisors and other educators that I work with are constantly trying to create a balance of learning in their classes and groups. The challenge is to stretch their time to include building a strong learning community, facilitating reflection, and...
01 Aug Bag of Nouns Activity for Review, Reinforcement of Content, Formative Assessment, and Fun!
Many of the inspired educators that I work with have shared variations of this playful party game for active review and formative assessment in the classroom or training sessions. Similarly to Play Dough Pictionary and Charades Race “Bag of Nouns” doubles as a playful group...
08 Sep Re-Purposing “Ice-Breaker” Activities for Academic Review, Reflection, Context Setting, and Formative Assessment
The teachers, corporate trainers, high school advisors and other educators I work with are constantly trying to create a balance of learning in their classes and groups. These interactive strategies help learners practice, review, synthesize and discuss academic material. Through playful collaborative learning teachers increase engagement, promote retention and enhance learning outcomes.
03 Feb Trade and Share: An Active Reflection and Dialogue Activity to Get Participants Moving, Talking, Reflecting and Keep Them Engaged
Over the last couple of years I’ve posted about a number of twists on activities traditionally used as icebreakers that I re-purpose as active, social approaches to reflection, processing or academic review (see August 4th and May 7th posts). These active dialogue activities not only help group members connect and build rapport early on in a program, they are also a great way to facilitate reflection and exploration of academic or training content at any point. Strategies such as these build comfort with reflective practice by allowing group members to share with one person at a time before being asked to share with the entire group. These partner sharing and small group reflection approaches are a great alternative to didactic question and answer sessions, as everyone is involved in reflecting, talking and sharing rather than just the “hand raisers”...