The strategies below are a selection of different techniques that instructors can use to help increase students’ cognitive engagement (thinking deeply about the content) and affective/emotional engagement (interest, enjoyment, and sense of belonging). There is a lot of overlap between many of these strategies so if you’re not sure which label to use, choose the one that you think best describes what you’re doing. If you’d like more information on any of these strategies, please contact the eLearning department. There are many, many more engagement strategies than just the ones listed here.

Engagement Strategy	Description
Active Reading Strategies (also good for videos!)	Require students to interact with the reading (or video) to increase cognitive engagement. This can include comprehension questions, finding evidence to support a position, create diagrams of the content, write a summary, create practice questions, making margin notes, create a glossary of unfamiliar terms, make predictions before reading, reflect after reading, etc.
Case studies	An in-depth example of a problem of practice in the field that students analyze.
Collaborative learning	Any strategy that requires students to build knowledge together. This is broader than “group work” and can be as short as 5 minutes like “think-pair-share” or a full-semester project.
Concept mapping	A diagram or visual representation of the relationships between concepts, sometimes called web map.
Examples & Nonexamples	Carefully considered examples as well as examples that are not included in the concept (nonexamples). For a process, this could include the right and the wrong way to do something.
Experiential Learning	These are opportunities to students to apply conceptual knowledge to hands-on practice and reflection. Labs, internships, simulations, practicums, capstone projects, clinical work, community service, and study abroad are all types of experiential learning.
Global learning	AAC&U defines global learning as “a critical analysis of and an engagement with complex, interdependent global systems and legacies (such as natural, physical, social, cultural, economic, and political) and their implications for people’s lives and the earth’s sustainability.”
Guided notes	Instructor-prepared handouts that give students cues where to write key concepts & relationships, etc. Can be used with lectures, videos, and reading. It can be combined with other note-taking systems such as Cornell Notes and Cloze Notes.
Inclusive Classrooms	Intentionally designing for diverse viewpoints and multiple perspectives so all students feel a sense of community
Instructor facilitated discussions	Actively engaging students during discussions by listening and responding to their ideas with guiding questions. In an online setting, this would include responding to students in the discussion forum.
Interdisciplinary Instruction	Intentionally integrating multiple academic fields to address complex problems. Sometimes called transdisciplinary teaching.
Jigsaw	A cooperative learning strategy where students work in small groups to become an “expert” on a topic then teach their topic to other students.
Metacognition	“Thinking about thinking” helps students reflect, self-regulate, and transfer their learning to other contexts.
Problem based learning	Students work in groups to solve an open-ended problem. Students are presented the problem then taught the content needed to solve the problem.
Project based learning	Students design, develop, and construct a solution to a real-world, open-ended problem.
Relevance	Intentionally connecting course content to students’ experiences, interests, and goals.
Retrieval Practice	Ask students practice questions before, during, or after instruction to increase cognitive engagement. Have students develop practice questions for each other. Ask students to recap what they know on a topic.
Student choice	Give students choice in assignment format or topic that still meets the learning objective.
Think-pair-share	This is a collaborative learning strategy where students think (or write) about a topic independently, then discuss it with a peer, then share with the class.

Other Resources for Active Learning and Student Engagement