7 Creative Assignments for your Virtual Classroom
Spotlight students’ creativity and boost engagement with these seven assignments for any subject.
It’s been two months since universities across the nation shuttered the doors of their classrooms, sending educators scrambling to adapt their course materials for remote instruction. Reactions to the migration online have been mixed. Some professors say that, while initially demanding, moving to distance learning has actually improved their relationships with their students. Others share their trepidation towards online lecturing, fearful that they are lecturing into a void of barely-there Zoom participants.
If you are a professor who has struggled to engage your class in the wake of school closures, consider introducing the following creative assignments to your curriculum. Most can be adapted to operate either synchronously or asynchronously. All guarantee an interesting and educational remote class session for both you and your students.
1. Five Minute Video Recap
Have your students create a five minute video recap of the topics you presented during the previous week’s virtual lecture. Grade their submissions based on accuracy and creativity — content-specific raps, TikToks, and interpretive dances should all be fair game.
This assignment is not just a lighthearted method of ensuring that students pay attention to you during lecture. Semantic encoding — associating memories with sounds, images, or physical motion — helps strengthen neural connections, which contribute to a student’s ability to store information in their long-term memory.
And, bonus — a number of technology companies are currently offering extended video-editing software trials.
2. Public Figure Podcast
It feels like just about everyone has a podcast, is starting a podcast, or is thinking about starting a podcast. Encourage your students to join the movement by recording their own podcast episode in which they interview a famous figure from your area of study. You can ask students to pair up for this assignment, offering them an opportunity for remote collaboration, or have them involve members of their family.
Effectively interviewing a public figure— even if that figure is a long-deceased mathematician, author, or politician — demands an intimate understanding of the figure’s life and the contributions they made to their field. Having students portray or engage in dialogue with these trailblazers in the form of a podcast helps them connect the concepts they learn about in class with their real-life applications, and with the historical significance of their originators.
3. Concept Trials
You can draw virtual classroom inspiration from the courtroom, even if you don’t teach law. Concept trials are an effective, Socratic seminar-style form of ensuring that students examine all perspectives of a topic discussed in class. And what better way to motivate disengaged students than with a little friendly competition?
Pair your students up, and assign each pair a concept from your course curriculum. Have one student act as the prosecution, questioning the validity and historical significance of the concept, and one as the defense, supporting the concept. Each should compose a one-minute opening statement, a one-minute closing statement, and be prepared to respond to classmates’ questions about their assigned topic. At the end of the debate, have the class act as a jury and vote on whether or not the concept has conviction.
4. Subject Salon
If you have a particularly enthusiastic and engaged class — and teach a subject rich with colorful contributors to the field — consider hosting a subject salon with your students.
Have each student select and research a key member of the field. Then host a video-lecture session in which each student dresses as and portrays their chosen innovator. Engage your class in debates about course topics, with each student responding as their figurehead would.
This theatrical assignment helps students associate concepts with the thought-leaders who first popularized them. The debate component of the session helps them compare and contrast differing perspectives within the field. And the comedic element introduced by students acting and dressing as their characters makes this a great project to end the semester with.
5. Make a Meme
With their simultaneous ubiquity and obscurity, memes have become a cultural cornerstone of the 2010s. They may have trended towards absurdity in recent years, but the most-enduring memes always contain enough truth and humanity to resound with the masses.
Have your students create their own memes about significant breakthroughs in your field, then ask them to explain their memes in a short paper (or video presentation). Examining notable historical events through memes allows students to reframe the event and its lasting importance using a modern lens. If your students come up with something particularly clever or original, their homework may go viral.
6. Translation
Have students select a topic discussed in your course, then choose an audience for whom they will translate tenets of the topic. The medium through which a student conveys their topic should be related to the audience they’ve chosen. For example:
– Explain logarithmic functions to third graders by creating a picture book
– Explain the cultural impact of tuberculosis to adolescent girls through a YouTube beauty tutorial
– Explain conservation of energy and momentum to Gen Z within a TikTok dance
– Explain Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need to senior citizens by producing an infomercial
There is evidence that learning through teaching is an incredibly effective method of improving students’ subject comprehension and mastery, as well as their communication skills. This assignment provides students with the opportunity to flex their artistry, ensuring an entertaining class session when it comes time to present their projects.
7. Jeopardy!
Some classes are difficult to engage in discussion. And some classes are overflowing with Ken Jennings— you know, those students who seem to have an even deeper grasper of the subject than yourself, and who aren’t afraid to show it.
Encourage your students to unleash their inner-Ken Jennings by hosting a virtual game of Jeopardy! using a web-conferencing tool (like Campuswire!). Split your class into teams and challenge them to answer course-related questions. The class member who lands in the question queue first has the first chance to answer correctly and win their team points. Consider offering extra credit to the winning team for extra motivation.
What creative projects have you assigned in your courses? Drop a comment below, or tweet me: @SannaSharp.
