1 What are Arrival Activities?

Arrival activities are brief non-assessed opportunities designed to foster community, develop connections, gather feedback, and enhance student engagement during the opening moments of class. (Note that these activities pertain to the start of all classes, and not just the first class of term.) Rather than jumping right into a formal lecture or discussion, they are “start-before-the-start” activities that can stand alone from course content.^[1] Arrival activities serve various functions within the classroom environment. For example, they can invite students to engage with the course; act as wellness check-ins; gather feedback from students; acclimatize students to what participation and engagement might look like in a digital learning environment; and provide opportunities for connection and perspective-taking.

We can think of arrival activities in a few different ways. Students arrive at our classrooms (virtual or face-to-face) from another class, work, or maybe standing in line for coffee and chatting with friends. So firstly, arrival activities can help learners bring their attention to the course. Secondly, arrival activities can potentially activate and bring forth students’ existing knowledge and experiences related to the course content. Activating prior knowledge is one way to enhance enduring learning and creates opportunities for the co-construction of knowledge. Arrival activities are also one way to bring course learning objectives (think Bloom here), like the application of knowledge, to the foreground. By linking and bridging current course content with current events, a brief video, or an assigned reading, students have the opportunity to reflect (in a meta-cognitive moment), to frame, and contextualize the information about to be learned.

Arrival activities can also be used to gauge where the students are at (re: mental wellness) and offer them a chance to decompress from their last class. For example, breathing exercises and questions related to amount of sleep, amount of time sitting in front of a computer, etc. can help inform your decisions regarding what to present in class that day.