6 Prompts to spark engagement among online learners
On or offline, Imagine Scholar facilitators are always experimenting to design engaging spaces that foster creativity and connection among students. As we’ve embarked on a new journey of digital learning, here are some of our most successful prompts in sparking digital discussion:
1. Write a poem inspired by a famous photograph
This creative prompt should encourage students to dig deep and exercise vulnerability with their classmates in sharing a piece of personal writing.
Striking photographs can stir emotion. This kind of evocative art is fertile ground for allowing students to exercise creativity. We sent students in our poetry & spoken word club images from famous African photographers and asked them to put pen to paper on poems inspired by these incredible pieces of art.
2. Recreate paintings using “found art”
Found art prompts are a great way to get students’ creative juices flowing, and add a bit of excitement to everyday learning.
In this exercise, we sent Scholars images of famous paintings. They were asked to recreate the paintings using everyday household and natural items. Found art encourages students to find beauty in the world around us — one that we often take for granted — and to slow down, taking time to notice the little things that come together to create beauty.
3. Share baby and childhood photographs
This community-building exercise will bring moments of delight and connection among learners.
Ask students to send a facilitator one image of themselves as a youngster. The facilitator should then share all the images with the class and allow students to guess who is who! Through the process, stories emerge and a little bit of laughter is inevitable. We love this prompt to bring people together.
4. Seven Song Salon
It’s not often that we take time to learn about the pivotal moments in one another’s lives in a classroom context. We think this is a shame.
The Seven Song Salon is another community-building exercise in which students are asked to share seven songs that have been influential in their lives during a 45min period, taking time to share the story behind each.
Credit: Thanks to Priya Parker for introducing us to the Seven Song Salon idea!
5. Gratitude challenge
The gratitude challenge encourages students to step outside of their comfort zones and to create joy in the lives of others.
It might not be a part of our daily routine to express gratitude to others, but this digital challenge can help normalize a culture of kindness. Our facilitators put out a call for every student to express gratitude to someone important in their lives and to report back on the experience.
6. See, Think, Wonder
This warm-up exercise will get the cogs turning and is easy to facilitate in an online environment.
Share a thought-provoking image or graphic with your students. First, ask them to privately write down what they see — avoiding assigning any meaning or stories to the image. Next, students should write down what they think is happening in the image. Finally, students write down what the image makes them wonder or question. At the end of class, our facilitators asked students to share their see, think, wonder statements and to explore possible answers to the questions they posed.
Credit: Thanks to the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Project Zero for sharing this resource!
We hope that these six prompts help to cultivate curiosity, spark engagement, and energize students in your online classes.
Have any great prompts for digital learners that we missed? We’d love to hear about them. Share your ideas with our facilitators by dropping us a note in the comments.
