Blog
Articles on cooperative learning and teaching structures: grouping students, assigning roles, wait time and brain breaks, with research and classroom examples.
Didactics
Learning to learn happens inside the lesson, not next to it
Seven ways of learning the research supports, in the class’s own words, with a structure per subject. And what works less than the poster says.
With colleagues
Four levels of listening, and how to hear which one you are on
Otto Scharmer's 4 levels of listening (Theory U): downloading, factual, empathic, generative. A signal phrase per level, an example and four exercises.
With colleagues
The Fox, the Stripes and Case Clinic
Why someone who resists step-by-step instructions builds step-by-step activities. A personal account of Case Clinic from Theory U in two u.lab circles.
Structures
Cooperative learning strategies for math, with the problems already worked out
Cooperative learning strategies for math, grades 3–7: 4 structures ready to run with the problems loaded, 3 printable card sets with answers. No sign-up.
Didactics
Does the Pomodoro Technique work? Research on 25 and 15 minutes
Does the Pomodoro Technique work? Two Dutch studies found fixed breaks help less than claimed and 25 minutes is no rule. Here is why 15 minutes suits a classroom.
Didactics
Wait time after a question depends on what you ask
Research says three seconds. The Dutch standard textbook says thirty. How much wait time a question needs, and what that number actually depends on.
Didactics
How to write a good statement to divide the class
A statement that splits the class in two is easy. One that leaves something to say after the vote is harder. Here's how, with ready statements by subject.
Didactics
Roles in group work, so three don't watch while one works
Division of roles in a group project: what a facilitator, timekeeper, recorder and materials manager do, 4 STEM roles, and how to add them one at a time.
Didactics
Grouping students in class is a choice between voluntary, random and mixed
Grouping students in class: voluntary, random or mixed? When to use each approach and how to split your class quickly and fairly.
Didactics
Brain breaks for a tired class and for an over-energised one
A tired class and an over-energised class need opposite brain breaks. Eight five-minute activities, sorted by what the group is actually short of.
Didactics
Socratic questions, with examples you can ask tomorrow
Socratic questions come in six types: clarification, assumptions, evidence, perspective, implications, and the question itself, each with wording you can use as is.
Our story
Why I built LudensFlow
The best teachers I know are also the most tired. Why whole-class teaching still dominates, and why I built a library of ready-to-use lesson activities.
Our story
They gave me a calendar. I kept thinking for six months
A school in Antwerp handed every teacher a tear-off calendar of activating teaching activities. Six months of thinking about it became LudensFlow.
Our story
Why LudensFlow? Huizinga, play and structure in classroom
Why is the platform called LudensFlow? On Huizinga's Homo Ludens, Bourdieu's cultural capital, and why explicit rules make a classroom more equal.
Structures
15 cooperative learning structures with steps, timing and group size
"Discuss it in groups" isn't an instruction. 15 cooperative learning structures with steps, timing and group size, ready for tomorrow's lesson.
Structures
What are cooperative learning strategies, and where do you start?
Cooperative learning strategies are structured activities where every student plays an active role. Here is why they work and how to start tomorrow.