How to Create an Interactive Activity for Your Classroom: A Step-by-Step Guide

Interactive classroom activities are steadily gaining popularity among educators and are replacing conventional assignments. In this article, we have prepared a guide on creating interactive worksheets for your class using Edform.

The Importance of Interactive Activities in the Classroom

A single point cannot measure the importance of interactive online activities. Given the versatility of such lessons and the ability to create new ones to meet the student's needs, they fit perfectly into the curriculum and become part of formative assessment.

Involvement

Very often, regular assignments do not attract students' attention, and their embeddedness in the subject is equated to zero. Interactive tasks assume that nothing will work without the participation of the student. In addition, it improves student-teacher communication.

Real-life applications

Remember, your students often ask, "How do we apply this to life?" This question can be answered through interactive online activities that focus on the practical application of what students have learned. 

Diversity

Everything gets boring at some point, especially monotonous homework with similar assignments. Interactive worksheets help to diversify lessons and homework, bringing something new to the educational process. 

What Are Some Examples of Good Interactive Activities?

Among the hundreds of online activities, you can identify those that are well put together and suitable for use in almost all cases.

There are some tips for your successful interactive online activity:

1. Make sure that the tasks provide the necessary intellectual load. Students need to think and cooperate during the lesson and online tasks.
2. Assignments should encourage brainstorming. These can be written activities or oral activities. 
3. Assignments to mark correct or incorrect answers should be unambiguous and should not raise additional questions. Base such assignments on previous lessons.
4. Written, oral, or video assignments should appeal to students' opinions. Ask questions that need to be answered by digging into your own mind. 
5. Assignments should include more than one question type and interactive element. On Edform, you can insert video, audio, and even math equations into a worksheet.

What Are Some Pitfalls to Avoid When Creating an Activity?

Before giving assignments to students, make sure that not only will you understand what is written on the worksheet.

Here is a list of the most common pitfalls to avoid when creating an activity:

1. The worksheet should not be on all topics at the same time, as it will be more difficult for students to navigate through the assignments
2. Avoid ambiguity in interpreting the assignments. All answers should be clear. 
3. Do not set too long or too short a deadline. Too short deadlines can put pressure on the student, and they will start to worry that they will not be able to hand in the work on time. Too long, on the contrary, will relax the student, and they will procrastinate.
4. Avoid overly personal questions in written assignments unless the student has suggested the topic.
5. Do not layer interactive elements, as they will not technically work.
6. The Number of Interactive Elements should match the number of regular elements on the worksheet. Otherwise, it can lead to confusion. For example, the Drag&Drop element implies two parts: the one you want to drag and the one where you want to drop it.

A Step-by-Step Guide

Creating interactive online activities on Edform requires no effort. In order to turn your ready-made worksheet into an interactive one, all you need to do is follow these steps:

1. Go to the main page of Edform
2. Click on "Create a new worksheet."
3. Download it from your computer, Google Drive, or Dropbox.
4. mark which pages you want to make interactive.
5. Enter the worksheet's name, the subject, and what age the tasks are designed for.
6. In the builder, you can add 8 auto-assessed and 3 manual-graded interactive elements. In the right bar, you might see additional features such as Images, YouTube videos, Audio, and others which can be great extras for your worksheet.
7. After adding interactive elements, publish your worksheet for public or private use. 

Your worksheet is ready to use. You can assign it an unlimited number of times. You can find students' answers in the Reports section, separately for each worksheet. 

 

Create the best interactive lessons with Edform today!