In this important hands-on section, TLH gives you valuable concepts and practical tools to join in the work of transforming classrooms across higher education. Below you will:

• Find out why and how active learning works
• Explore a selection of teaching activities you can use today in your classroom 
• Familiarize yourself with the books TLH faculty fellows read to transform their teaching 

We also encourage you to write and publish your own transformative texts. Take a look at some models authored by the TLH team:

• “Practicing the Equitable, Transformative Pedagogy We Preach” by Drs. Shelly Eversely and Cathy N. Davidson 
• The New College Classroom by Dr. Davidson and TLH Associate Director, Christina Katopodis 
• Further resources for teaching online, accessible course design, and active, transformative learning methods
• OpenEd CUNY, an Open Educational Resource (OER) from CUNY faculty 

Why Active Learning?

Cathy N. Davidson, founding Faculty Co-Director of TLH, writes about why and how active learning works:

“If your personal goal is equality in a world where inequality is structural and violent and pervasive, engaged learning allows you to restructure your classroom with equality at the core. (Here’s the adage: You cannot counter structural inequality with good will; you need to create structures designed for equality.) You cannot structure all the rest of education or society–but you can at least start with your classroom as a place in which to model a better way. Engaged learning methods work. We’ve known at least since Ebbinghaus’s memory experiments of the 1880s that students (like all of us) forget up to 75% of the tested or “testable” content learned in a course within six days after taking a summative, high-stakes exam in a course.  Active learning–peer-to-peer explanation, exchange, individual research on the topic, and methods described below–increase retention, understanding, and applicability well beyond the test.”

Read more here.

Activities

Think-Pair-Share

This can be done in person by handing out an index card to every participant or it can be done online. Hearing your own voice in a classroom—and witnessing being heard—is the beginning of taking responsibility for your own learning.

THINK: Ask a question (e.g., “What are your learning goals for this semester? What do you want to learn from this class that you could take with you?”) and set a timer for 90 seconds. Everyone takes 90 seconds to jot down 1-3 things in response. [Note: this step is important because everyone writes down something original and true for them, avoiding “group think” or following the majority.]

PAIR: When time is up, ask everyone to get together in groups of two or three to share what they wrote down and discuss together for 90 seconds (set another timer for this; remind them to switch speakers halfway through). One person reads their card out loud; the other listens without interrupting. Then they switch roles. Everyone has one opportunity to speak uninterrupted and one opportunity to listen uninterrupted. After the pair has listened to one another, they then (still within the 90 seconds) work quickly together to synthesize or choose one thing they will “share,” together, with the larger class.

SHARE: If the group is small, you can go around and have each pair read rapidly what they came up with, sticking to what is on the card. In a very large lecture class or a Zoom room, each pair can share in a Google Doc or in the chat. 

Entry/Exit Tickets

This exercise is based on the same student engagement principles as Think-Pair-Share. Entry tickets work well for in-person or remote classrooms to get a quick idea of what students are thinking of. Exit tickets use the same method, but instead show what worked or did not work in a class. For both entry and exit tickets, hand out index cards for students to jot down ungraded, spontaneous prompts in a few minutes. 

ENTRY TICKETS: In almost any kind of class, open-ended questions work as entry tickets. Questions such as, “What was the most difficult part of this week’s assignment?” or “What did you read this week that you’re still thinking of?” or even, “Invent a prompt of your own. 90 seconds.” In a virtual classroom, entry tickets create community across distance. In small settings, you can share tickets in a “popcorn” fashion: after a student responds, they randomly choose another student to share after them, and so on. You can even put all responses in a collaborative online document. Entry tickets can even be used as a way of taking roll. 

EXIT TICKETS: Exit tickets can be done with all class sizes, even in large lecture settings. It can also be used as an alternative to roll call or pop quizzes. At the end of class, have students write down an idea they’re still thinking of from class or a lingering question they have. If students do not have anything memorable to write, ask them what an unforgettable topic for the class might be. You can begin the next class by drawing on your students’ responses. For online settings, you can do this via email or using a discussion board. 

Collaborative Manifesto

This exercise is inspired by designer Bruce Mau and his book, Bruce Mau’s 24 Principles for Designing Massive Change In Your Life and Work. Mau writes, “Write down what you want to do with the rest of your life in the next three minutes.” This can be done by giving students this question as a short writing prompt. Their responses can be personal, related to their education, or anything that comes to mind for them. Have each student stand and read their manifesto. Reading aloud, students can discover the “hidden beauty” in the room with them that Mau writes about in his book.

This exercise is not limited to students; it’s for all of us. We can all use this exercise to transform our departments and start by imagining the future we want. At TLH, Professors Cathy N. Davidson and Shelly Eversely did this collaborative manifesto activity in a shared, live-edited Google document with 51 faculty representing over 20 unique disciplines and 18 two and four year colleges across CUNY. 

Flexible Syllabus with “Or” Options

Creating “or” options is careful and slow inventory work that builds a community in your classroom, whether in-person or online. Offering a syllabus with “Or” options (e.g., a midterm paper or biweekly reading reflections; a final paper or digital project) allows you to cater to every student. Have a discussion about accessibility using small-group and class-wide deliberations, and use consensus voting to make amendments to your syllabus. Don’t just go with majority decisions, but take suggestions into consideration to create “or” options for course requirements. You can also survey your students prior to the first day of classes or use a Think-Pair-Share activity on the first day to generate a co-created shared document.  You can also add in “or” options when you initially create your syllabus to cater to more students and meet them where they are.

Reading List

2021-2022 Book List

2022 – 2023 Book List

Creative Licenses

When sharing your work online, like with the sample syllabi and assignments TLH faculty shared above, apply a Creative Commons license to your work to protect how it is shared, distributed and used by others. Below is a document on the different Creative Commons licenses: