color your classes: low- and no-tech college projects

Anyone who’s met me knows that I love to help students and their professors make the most of technology as part of our teaching and learning. But especially now, with Generative “AI” sneaking into every facet of our lives, many of us are craving a little more simplicity, a little more genuine humanity, and a little more time away from our screens.

So here are a few ways that I’m encouraging students to close their laptops and put themselves into “Do Not Disturb” mode in my classes, plus some additional resources to help you bring some low-tech time into your classes!

The majority of my class time is discussion. Usually, we follow a pretty standard format:

However, sometimes it’s good to mix it up, and that often involves having students close their laptops and try a different mode for discussion. Here are two of my favorites:

This is especially helpful if you are discussing a hard or hot-button topic and/or if you have a few eager voices who tend to be more generous with talking than listening. Sometimes I do this with a set of questions displayed on a slide; sometimes not.

Both of these are great ways for students to really connect to each other and to the content we’re discussing. It requires everyone to listen and to do their part to keep conversation moving. Are there sometimes awkward silences? Yes, of course. Are there sometimes people who haven’t done the reading and aren’t able to participate? Yes, again – sometimes I ask those people to self-identify to me and give them a specific job, like listening to the “speed dating” convos and reporting back on smart things they heard others say, etc.

I don’t give exams, but I do want to be sure my students are accountable for the content that we cover, and analog options are often best for this.

Please note that it’s important to be aware of students’ accommodations before requiring handwritten work. I never want some students in the class to be singled out by their technology use, so I only do these kinds of things after a private dialogue with any students whose accommodations indicate that the student needs a computer for their written work.

Here’s a sampling of in-class activities to achieve this:

I often do a mid-semester content review – just a simple set of slides with multiple-choice questions that should be easy to answer correctly for those who’ve been keeping up with the reading. I do this in teams and usually give out crayons and coloring pages. Midterm is a stressful time for students – they’ve usually been staring at their laptops and study guides for hours on end and they honestly welcome the chance to relive a bit of their childhood. But even more importantly, what I’ve found is that the coloring helps them focus and have a great discussion about what they knew and what they missed – they can look at their coloring page instead of having to look their colleagues in the class in the eye when they say they don’t know an answer and so everyone has a better experience overall. And yes, I give out gold stars to everyone at the end. You’d be surprised at the motivating power of a gold star sticker!

In my medieval lit classes, I often use a giant “gameboard” that looks like a castle, with each team of knights represented by a different color shield. Having any kind of props like this really helps everyone relax and learn.

There are LOADS of great projects out there … I know all of you have great ideas too. I’ve been really inspired lately by the Against AI site and the many assignment ideas found there – I hope you are too!