Every teacher needs an active learning strategy toolbox. It is nice to be able to vary your strategies and bring out a new activity when learning starts to feel stagnant, when students are restless, or when you or the students are feeling bored with the same old activities. A new active learning strategy can revitalize your classroom and leave everyone feeling energized.
The activity we are sharing today is an easy activity that you can do in ten or fifteen minutes. It works for all grade levels and all subject areas. This activity is great for reviewing previously taught concepts or introducing new ones by connecting to students’ previous knowledge.
Mix and Match Active Learning Strategy
You will need some index cards and a set of questions and answers.
Divide the number of students in your class in half. Prepare a set of questions and answers for half the number of students in your class. If you have an uneven number, round up.
Write the question on an index card. Write the answer on a separate index card.
Shuffle the cards.
Give one card to each student. Their goal is to walk around the room, read each other’s questions and answers and find the person with the card that matches their own card. When they find the person whose card matches their own, they stand together as a pair.
Once the students have matched up, invite each pair to share their question and answer. The class gives a thumbs up or thumbs down to show that they think the match is correct or incorrect. You can also use this time to stretch the question, discuss why the answer is correct or incorrect or extend the information in some way.
If you have an uneven number of students in your class you can take a card and participate yourself or offer the extra card to the first pair who has finished and allow them to make a second pair.
This activity can engage students in many ways. They have an opportunity for physical movement, which many students need and enjoy. They work together and cooperate with others in a very structured and low threat way. The questions themselves offer opportunity to engage in critical thinking as they decide whether questions and answers are a match or not. You can also vary the levels of the questions to include lower level recall questions or higher-level application, analysis and synthesis questions.
You can also develop variations on this strategy. Students can write the questions. You can make it more difficult by connecting three different cards. You can use it without questions by connecting vocabulary words that share a meaning or are connected in some way. We’ve also used it to have students match punctuation to sentences or categories to words such as matching weather terms to classifications such as types of clouds, tools for measuring weather and types of precipitation.
Use your imagination and you will be able to come up with unique and fun learning opportunities with this simple active learning strategy.
We hope you enjoy it! Drop us an email and let us know how you used it.
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