Now that you've learned some about the importance of active learning strategies in lectures, here is a list of techniques to break up lectures, organized by purpose. Notice that most of these do not require you to redesign an entire lesson, but rather suggest quick elements to add. Use chat, non-verbals, polls, or interactive elements in a slide deck to collect responses virtually.

Retrieval practice

- Try quick, ungraded multiple choice learning checks (tech for this might be simple hands raised, Poll Everywhere or Zoom polls).
- Clarification pause - pause after a key point to allow students to write down what they recall and organize notes. Students can exchange notes with a partner to check for understanding.
- 1-minute recall practice - Pause at the beginning of class for students to write down everything they can remember from the last class.
- Incomplete notes - give students a copy of your slides but with information missing for them to fill in.

Understanding checks

- Pause and offer time for students to ask questions - with voices, in a chat window or a digital backchannel.
- Pause for students to assess their own understanding. Examples: "Are you ready to move on from this topic? Type Y or N in the chat box." Or “how well do you think you understand on a scale of 1-5? (“1=lost and 5 =you are ready to get up here and replace me!”)

Critical thinking

- Ask a complex or thought-provoking question. Give students time to think or work, then ask them to share their responses via hand-raising, or in a poll or the chat window on Zoom. Ask for a few volunteers to explain their answers/thinking. Use to launch a longer discussion or pivot to a teaching point.
- Think-Pair-Share. Use a similar procedure, but break them into pairs/3's to discuss before debriefing with the class.
Group work:
- Break students up into groups to work on problems or answer questions. Learn more about breakout group strategies here.
Pauses to think
- Give students a full 60 seconds to simply ponder an important question - then ask for some sample responses.

Student Feedback

- Ask for simple feedback: “Is the way I’m explaining this making sense to you?” Or slightly more formally, use a mid-semester prompt like, "write down one thing in our class that's working and one thing that's not" (have students submit on index cards, private chat, etc.)

Mind-Body Breaks

- In a longer class, simply pause for students to move their bodies - stretch, stand, use the restroom, look at something 10+ feet away (helps prevent migraines). One recommendation is to plan a 5 minute break for 40-45 minutes of focused work.

To learn more, check out Yale's Poorvu Center article on Active Learning, which shares more strategies for active learning in lectures.