Do Now is a technique for getting students engaged in learning as soon as they enter the classroom and find their seats. They will start the activity even before the instructor is in the room, perhaps. The Do Now activity also helps eliminate some of the poor behavior that comes from idle time before "class" starts.
A good Do Now activity has 4 elements:
- Self-explanatory and self-contained: the students should be able to do the activity without needing extra directions or help.
- Short: 3 to 5 minutes long.
- Written: the students should have to write something down. This allows you to see if they are doing, or have done, the activity.
- Preview: the activity should preview the lesson of the day.
The author suggests that the best Do Now activities require a bit of preparation from the instructor. Instead of taking time to write the activity on the board, have it written out on a slide and put that up quickly on the overhead screen.
My response:
I love this idea. I think it would work well in intro programming classes, and maybe also in my 300-level networking courses. For intro programming, I can see having a few very short coding problems available as soon as they enter. This way they will get a bit of practice doing what they are learning -- exactly what we need.
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