Sometimes you can increase student engagement with small tweaks to standard practices. For example, we liked this idea of holding Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions as a way of getting students to ask more questions than they might if you just, you know, asked them if they have questions.
For the unfamiliar, AMAs are a format that got popularized on platforms like Reddit. Barack Obama has done it and so has Malala Yousafzai.
Check out this article by Dr. Pooja Agarwal about holding AMAs for your students: Include an "ask me anything" in your class to boost learning and community.
Dr. Agarwal says that because she frames the activity as AMA her students feel more comfortable asking clarifying questions about course topics.
