Engaging College Students: Innovative Class Exercise Activities

College instructors are constantly looking for ways to boost student engagement and foster innovative thinking in the classroom. Traditional lecture-based methods can sometimes lead to boredom and disengagement, prompting educators to seek more interactive and experiential activities. The key is to transform passive classrooms into spaces for active learning. This article explores a variety of class exercise activity ideas designed to energize college students, promote collaboration, and make learning more enjoyable and effective.

Breaking the Ice and Building Connections

The initial moments in a classroom can significantly impact student participation. Icebreakers can help students mentally arrive in the lesson and get ready to learn.

Orientation Bingo: A classic icebreaker, orientation bingo helps incoming freshmen connect with one another. Participants find students who meet specific criteria and mark off squares to win. For larger campuses, divide participants into smaller groups for easier interaction.
Campus Scavenger Hunt: Turn a campus tour into an interactive game. A scavenger hunt encourages teamwork and helps students navigate their new environment. Create clues for essential campus locations like the library, student center, and advising center. Teams take selfies at each location, and prizes can be awarded for speed or creativity.
Meet Your Match: Coordinate meet-and-greets for students who share similar interests or survey responses. Pairing students can help them build new relationships.
- Buddy Blind Dates: Pair students for conversations before or during orientation week, either manually or using tools like Slack's Donut app.
- Reception Line Relay: A speed-dating style activity where students in two lines have brief one-on-one conversations before rotating to meet someone new. Provide conversation prompts to avoid awkward silences.
- Mentor Matching: Connect freshmen with upperclassmen mentors who can offer advice on study skills, budgeting, and balancing academic and social life.
Beach Ball Icebreaker: Write questions on a beach ball and have students answer the question under their right thumb when they catch it before tossing it to another student.
Fun Facts Games: These games help students share information and learn about each other in a sociable way.
- Two Truths and a Lie: Students write down three statements, one of which is a lie, and classmates guess the false statement.
A Step in Someone Else’s Shoes: This game helps students observe the diversity and different background experiences of the student body. Students line up, and an orientation leader reads statements about various life experiences. Students who have experienced the described situation step forward.

Energizing Activities and Team Building

Physical and engaging activities can energize students, promote interaction, and create a positive learning environment.

Line-Up: Challenge students to line up according to specific criteria (e.g., height, birthdate) without speaking. This promotes non-verbal communication and teamwork.
Build-a-Shake: Have pairs of students create unique handshakes, then teach them to new partners, gradually expanding the handshake. This fosters creativity and non-verbal communication.
Sound Ball: Students stand in a circle and throw imaginary balls, making unique sounds as they do. This increases spontaneity and teamwork.
Near and Far: Students secretly choose one person to stay close to and another to stay away from, creating a chaotic dance as they try to maintain those distances. This demonstrates how individual choices impact the whole system.
Sync Claps: Participants stand in a circle and send a clap around the circle, trying to clap in unison. This generates focus and alignment in a group.

Exploring Creativity and Innovation

These exercises encourage students to think creatively and develop innovative solutions.

Unusual Combinations: Share examples of innovations that came from unusual combinations (e.g., Netflix, Kiva.org, Google Ads). Have student teams draw a brand name and a product category and develop a new product for that brand in that category.
App Creation: Students identify a problem faced by a particular group (often from their own experiences) and develop an app to solve it. They then draw the app interface on whiteboards or large paper.
100 Uses: Teams brainstorm 100 uses for a basic material (e.g., newspapers, plastic bottles) in a short amount of time. This lowers inhibitions for sharing ideas.
Reverse Brainstorming: Starting with a list of new technologies, students brainstorm what other needs might be met using that technology.
Add Value: Students use basic materials (e.g., pizza boxes, old CDs, post-it notes) to "Add Value" by creating something new and useful.
"How Might We…?" Questions: Write "How might we…?" questions on index cards. Students in a circle write an idea to address the question, then pass the card to the right, with each student building on the previous idea.
The Worst Idea Ever: Students receive a card with a terrible product idea and try to make it even worse. Then, they identify any nuggets of good ideas hidden within the awful ones.
Tinker Toy Challenge: Students engage in creative problem-solving and teamwork to build a vehicle to transport a sick individual across rugged terrain using Tinker Toys.

Encouraging Reflection and Discussion

These activities promote deeper thinking and meaningful discussions.

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Personal Display: Students create a display that showcases their unique qualities and interests, including favorite quotes, inspirational figures, and areas of expertise.
Student Panel Discussion: Organize a Q&A panel with upperclassmen answering questions from new students and parents. Offer options for anonymous questions.
Moral Dilemmas: Provide students with a moral or ethical dilemma and ask them to explore potential solutions as a group.
Rotating Discussions: Share discussion questions and have students discuss in groups, with students rotating to new groups to share findings and answer subsequent questions.
Provocative Statements: Distribute provocative statements in advance and have students indicate their agreement or disagreement. In class, have students with differing opinions share their views.
Concept Mapping: Visually organize concepts and ideas to understand how they relate to each other.
Inner/Outer Circles: Students form two circles and discuss responses to a question with their partner. The outer circle then rotates, creating new pairs.

Incorporating Real-World Experiences

Connecting classroom activities to real-world situations can make learning more relevant and engaging.

Empathy Exercise: Simulate the experience of the elderly by having students perform basic tasks while wearing foggy glasses, bulky gloves, and old jackets.
"What Might We Have Done?" Present students with an incomplete news story and ask what actions could have led to positive recognition.
Volunteer Opportunities: Connect students with volunteer opportunities at local organizations, tutoring programs, and alternative spring break treks.
Faculty Meet & Greets: Offer incoming students an introduction to departmental heads, teaching assistants, and advisors in an informal setting.
Case Studies: Assign case studies to students and have them discuss with a partner, then share their thoughts with the larger group.

Learning from Failures

Analyzing failed products and experiences can provide valuable lessons.

Wall of Shame: Create a collection of failed products to illustrate course material points.
Product Autopsies: Analyze why certain products failed in the market.

Adapting to the Needs of Today's Students

Today's students have different expectations and experiences than previous generations. Instructors need to adapt their teaching methods to meet these needs.

Open-Ended Questions: Use open-ended questions to encourage discussion and participation.
Finding Mistakes: Incorporate activities where students can find and correct errors in programs or examples.
Student-Centered Review Sessions: Allow students to lead review sessions, identifying areas where they are struggling.
Visual Media: Use short video clips to spark discussion and engage students.
Tech Tutorials: Help students learn how to access and complete essential digital tasks.

Maintaining Engagement

Maintaining student engagement requires ongoing effort and adaptation.

Varying Formats: Regularly switch up the format of activities and discussions.
Constructive Critiques: Encourage constructive critiques of projects to help students grow their ideas.
Competition: Introduce competition and a fear of failure to increase student engagement.

Examples of Successful Class Exercises

Crash Course Activity: In a New Product Development course, student teams create pitches on how to improve existing products within 48 hours.
Design Thinking Module: Connect students with real people facing real challenges to build empathy and uncover underlying issues.
Wallet Exercise: Emphasize the importance of developing empathy, leveraging short design sprints, and building low-fidelity prototypes.
Biodesign Class: Students pitch problems that must be solved, vote on which problems to tackle, and develop innovative solutions.

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