10/08/2026
This is the most expensive in-class activity I’ve used with my college students. Spoiler-alert: it was not sustainable, but it was fun while it lasted.
I used it to teach backwards design to students interested in teaching and education. They designed a charcuterie/cheese/candy/Trader Joe’s fall foods board on a sheet of paper, then taught their partner how to build it. They couldn’t hand over their illustrated plan. They had to use verbal instructions and think about the sequence of how things got put on the board.
Sometimes I couldn’t get everything they wanted, or we didn’t have enough of particular ingredients, so they had to improvise and adjust. They learned you can have a plan, but you also have to be flexible. They also learned how challenging it is to break a finished product down into the steps it takes to get to that product.
So how was I able to pull this off? First of all, this was something I was only able to do for a few semesters because I had a donor who specifically gave money for in-class active learning. They approved the purchase of the supplies with their gift. It’s worth noting that donors often think about big gifts for big things like athletics, but I rely on donors who see classroom projects, or the coffee in our writing center, as something they can contribute to. Donors don’t always have to give big money to have a big impact.
The second thing is that I teach at a small college, and this activity would be incredibly difficult to scale up, not only in terms of the supplies, but in terms of the expense. It is a benefit of teaching (and learning) at a small school.
But there are a lot of ways to teach things, and through active learning, sometimes you get really incredible results. Even though I realistically have a dollar store budget, it’s still possible to create memorable experiences.
What would you do to foster in-class active learning if you had the resources?
