Editor’s Toolkit: Incorporating Interactive Skill-Builders (P. 5)

A text-based drag and drop exercise presents multiple items that fit into two or more groups; students must classify each of the items by dragging it to the appropriate group’s on-screen container.

Drag and drop activities help students achieve course goals centered on categorizing, comparing, and/or differentiating among concepts or items. For instance, they could be used to categorize movements according to type, compare vertebrates and invertebrates, or distinguish between two theories. They are often used to review categories that have two-plus items each, match items to groups, or compare different categories’ characteristics.

Examples by Discipline

• Behavioral & Social Sciences: Differentiate between Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories of cognitive development.
• Business & Management: Compare corporate, disregarded, and pass-through entities.
• Science, Math, & Engineering: Distinguish between heliocentrism and geocentrism.
• Humanities & Fine Arts: Compare New Orleans Style and Dixieland jazz.

Additional Resource: See Quick Guide: Drag and Drop (Text Based)

A sequencing or sorting activity presents a series of items, steps, or phases that students must arrange in the correct order.

Sequencing/sorting exercises assist students in organizing material according to chronology or causation. For example, they can be used to review major events, trace causes and effects, reinforce methodology, or recall procedural steps. These activities are particularly useful when students are learning about processes, cycles, and historic occurrences.

Examples by Discipline

• Behavioral & Social Sciences: Identify the sequence of steps for overturning a wrongful conviction.
• Business & Management: Sort the actions taken during patent application from start to finish.
• Science, Math, & Engineering: List the phases of the animal cell cycle from first to last.
• Humanities & Fine Arts: Arrange England’s Tudor rulers from earliest to most recent.

Additional Resource: See Quick Guide: Sequencing