Scott Simkins
Engaged and Active Student Learning
Using Prompts
The prompts I distribute to the individual groups of students in my classes through Canvas were the very questions I might have asked to less effect in a traditional lecture. They are challenging enough to require reading and understanding the text, but simple enough for them to discuss in ten to fifteen minutes in the active learning environment. Then each group stands and presents its response to their peers in the other groups.
Ideally, the prompts will interrelate and the narrative this produces should fit into the larger narrative of the whole course.
The prompts are distributed to the groups on Canvas before class and displayed in PowerPoint during their presentations, and then the PowerPoints may be converted to PDFs for the students to use as study guides. Click the button to the right to see an example.
The prompts may then be used as examination essay questions, as seen here, and offered in a bank of prompts from which to choose. This reinforces the texts, their most significant concepts, and their historical and cultural contexts.