Category Archives: By Convenience

Daisy Chain

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Have participants take turns reading a portion of their notes aloud beginning with the start of the lecture. Another student should pick up where their peer left off. Pause between each participant to see if the student missed anything from the section they read. Give students time to add this to their notes before proceeding. The SI Leader can participate as well. Continue until you have a complete set of notes and have a short discussion in which participants can ask questions or share note taking strategies they find effective for this particular class.

Pro Tip: This can be duplicated weekly as a warm up or cool down activity with little to no prep on your end.

Pro Tip: Since students will be reading directly from their notes, don’t hesitate to challenge them to think critically. If they read a definition or concept that is particularly important, ask them if they can explain it in their own words or provide an example not given in lecture.

from Baylor University

Word or Formula Cards

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Example with vocabulary words from a K-12 environment

  1. Provide students with blank index cards.
  2. Provide a list of words, formulas, theories, processes, steps, etc. that they’ll need to know and differentiate between
  3. Have students divide index cards into 4 quadrants.
    1. Word/Concept
      1. Quad 1: Word
      2. Quad 2: Define the word
      3. Quad 3: Real world example and/or non-example (what the word is NOT)
      4. Quad 4: Illustration or diagram
    2. STEM
      1. Quad 1: Name for algorithm, formula, or process
      2. Quad 2: Steps in process/problem-solving
      3. Quad 3: Common mistakes to watch out for
      4. Quad 4: Illustration, if relevant; when you would use this process or formula; and/or real world application
    3. Quadrant set up can vary based on your needs and what makes sense for the concepts

This can be done with just a few note cards weekly as a warm up or cool down. Have students keep the note cards and by the end of the unit, they will have a set of note cards to study from. 

Make & Take Practice Quiz

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  1. Ask each student to create a practice quiz. Be sure they also create an answer key for the quiz.They can utilize books, notes, and lecture slides, to ensure the questions/answers are correct. 
    1. Be sure to come up with a number of questions you’d like them to create.
    2. You can also specify the type of questions. For instance, if exams are typically multiple choice, it would be helpful for them to create multiple choice questions. If you are in a Math based course, ask them to create a few practice problems.
  2. After everyone has created a practice quiz, pair up students and ask them to exchange quizzes. 
  3. Students should take their partner’s quiz without using resources if possible.
  4. When finished, partners meet back up to walk through the answers and score their quizzes.
  5. Allow time for discussion after, for questions or confusions that may come up.

As a Warm Up: Ask students to create a 3-5 question quiz based on content from the last lecture. When students take the quiz, they’ll have an idea of what they understand well and what they don’t understand well going into the SI session.
As a Main Activity: Ask students to create somewhat longer quizzes over the material for the upcoming exam, specific chapters or lectures, or over everything from the class so far.
As a Cool Down: Ask students to create a 3-5 question quiz based on what they learned in the SI session today.

What’s the Big Idea?

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Students often feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information they’re presented with in a lecture or SI session & this technique can help them identify and organize the information presented.

  1. Ask each student to explain what they thought was the most important concept they learned during a particular lecture or SI session. (Basically asking: “If you could take only one thing from the information presented, what would it be?”)
  2. Have each student write their takeaway up on the board.
  3. Ask each student to offer a different takeaway, so most of the main ideas are covered. 

You can ask students to do this as they come into the session room to save time. As your warm up, you can have students come up to the board and read each other’s takeaways and generate questions they still have.

Notes Review

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This is a method of getting the students to work together to review and compile their lecture notes in a complete and organized way. It’s a great warm up activity that you can even utilize every week.

  1. Pair students up (or allow them to choose partners). Alternatively, you could do this in small groups as well.
  2. Ask students to read aloud from their notes. Encourage other students to interject, ask questions, provide missing details, or clarify details about the topic.
    1. Alternative: Ask students to swap notes and read each other’s independently then discuss similarities or differences.
  3. As students find missing parts or holes in their notes, they add to them.

Why do this activity?

  1. Students talk about the content out loud, helping them remember details better
  2. Students can see other styles or approaches to taking lecture notes that may help them better their note taking.
  3. It’s tough to get down all the important details in lecture sometimes. Usually students are missing parts in their notes and/or have some details written down incorrectly. This gives students a space to review and make sure what they’re studying from is accurate and complete.
  4. If students have conflicting information in their notes, it gives you a chance to clarify for them and lead them to finding the correct information.

Variation: Ask students to bring notes in from their assigned class readings and do the same activity.