Teaching has changed a lot over the years, especially with new technology. But here's what hasn't changed: students learn best when they're involved and having fun.
Sure, the classic teaching tools - stories, examples, pictures, and videos - still work great. But what if you could make them even better by adding interaction? Let's show you how.
Here are 14+ interactive presentation ideas for students to turn your regular lessons into fun, interactive experiences.
| Needs | Ways to present information to a class |
| Presenters want the audience to interact with each other better | Story Telling |
| Presenters want the audience to understand the context better | Games, Debates and Discussions |
| Presenters want the audience to share their concerns and thoughts toward topics better | Quizzes, Brainstorming |
| Presenters want audience to share their concerns and thoughts toward topics better | Live Q&As |
Table of Contents
14 Interactive Presentation Ideas for Students
You've got great lesson plans and know your material perfectly. Now, just add some fun activities to make your class something students will enjoy and remember.
Check out these six interactive activities you can use in person or online to get your students excited about learning.
Story Telling
Stories are perfect for catching students' attention. Telling stories is a great icebreaker activity to start your Monday classes with energy or to give students a break after tough subjects like math or science.
But wait - how do you make storytelling interactive? Let me show you some fun tricks.
1. Tell Your Story
Suitable for middle and high schoolers
Here's a fun one of interactive presentation ideas for students: Story guessing! One team shares a story but stops at the exciting part. Everyone else uses the open-ended slides on AhaSlides to write their own endings, watching as each guess pops up on the big screen. The team then reveals the true ending, and the best guesser wins a prize!
Interactive Games
Here are three fun games you can play virtually or in class with your students.
Games make any lesson better - no matter what grade you teach. When students are having fun, they pay more attention and learn more. You can use games to teach your lesson or just to wake everyone up and get them excited.
Here are three fun games you can play virtually or in class with your students.
🎉 Icebreaker games are a fantastic way to break the ice and connect people in any setting, from classrooms and meetings to casual gatherings."
2. Pictionary
Suitable for all ages
Everyone loves Pictionary! You can play with pairs or split the class into teams - whatever works best for your group size and grade level.
Teaching online? No problem. You can play Pictionary on Zoom using its whiteboard feature, or try Drawasaurus, which lets up to 16 people play at once.
3. Ambassadors
Suitable for middle and high schoolers
Ambassadors is a great game for teaching geography lessons. Each player is assigned a country to represent. The players are then asked to describe the country with facts about it, such as its flag, currency, food, etc.
Students share facts about their mystery country - its food, flag, and more. Others guess using a word cloud, where popular answers grow bigger. It's way more fun than memorizing facts from a book!
4. Show and Tell
Suitable for primary students
This is a perfect game to teach them new words, what category they belong to, their meaning and their uses.
Teaching complex vocabulary can be pretty tricky, especially with young learners. Let's make learning new words feel like show and tell! This is a perfect game to teach them new words, what category they belong to, their meaning and their uses.
Pick a topic, let students choose something from that group, and share a story about it. When kids connect words to their own experiences, they remember them better - and have more fun doing it!
💡 Take a look at 100s more fun games you can play with your students in class!
5. Quizzes
Quizzes are among the most effective interactive presentation ideas for students because they're so flexible. Want to teach something new? Quiz it. Need to check what students remember? Quiz it. Just want to make the class more fun? Quiz it again!
From multiple-choice and audio questions to picture quiz rounds and matching pairs, there are many interactive quizzes you can play in class to engage your students.
Brainstorming
6. Brainstorming
Students need more than just textbook knowledge - they also need soft skills. Here's the thing: in most class activities, students focus only on finding the 'right' answer.
But brainstorming is different. It lets students' minds roam free. They can share any idea that pops into their head, which helps them become better at working with others and remembering what they learn. There's no pressure to be 'right' - just to be creative.
You can brainstorm about your lesson topic, or let students pick something fun to discuss. Here are two brainstorming games that get students thinking creatively and working together.
7. Tick-Tock
Suitable for all ages
If you are looking for a simple game with little preparation, Tick-Tock is the one. The game is played in groups and each group will be given 1 topic.
- The students of each group are seated in a circle for this activity
- Give each team a theme or a topic, say Cartoons
- Every student in the team should name one cartoon within a set time limit and continue the game for the next two rounds.
- You can have one topic per round and eliminate students who didn't answer within the time limit.
- The last one standing wins
- This can be played both as a filler or can be played according to the subject you are teaching.
8. Bridge the Words
Suitable for middle and high schoolers
Teaching English can be fun and exciting if you know how to use the right tools and activities at the right time. Here's one of the interactive presentation ideas for students that makes learning English vocabulary fun: 'Bridge the Words'!
'Bridge the words' can be used to teach compound words and vocabulary to students.
The complexity of the words can be decided based on the grade you are teaching.
- The game can be played individually or in groups.
- Give your students a list of words and ask them to choose one from it
- The students then have to come up with as many compound words as possible within a particular time
If you want to play this game with young learners, you could use a "match the pair" slide on AhaSlides.
💡 Check out some more tips and tricks to host a successful brainstorming session for your students.
Q&As
9. Q&As
Irrespective of what grade or subject you teach, your students will have some questions about the material.
But most of the time, students hesitate to ask questions because they are not confident enough or they fear that others might think the questions are silly. So how can you tackle this problem?
A live Q&A can be a fun and interactive experience for your students with the help of online interactive platforms like AhaSlides.
- Students can send in their questions anonymously or with their names, depending on their choice.
- The questions will appear from newest to oldest, and you can mark the questions that are answered.
- Your students can upvote the popular questions, and you can answer them based on priority, as well as skip the ones that are less relevant or repetitive.
🎊 Learn more: Best Q&A Apps to Engage With Your Audience | 5+ Platforms For Free in 2024
10. Sing a Song
Here's one of the most unexpected interactive presentation ideas for students. Singing is a powerful tool for crowd engagement for several reasons
Creates a Shared Experience: Singing together fosters a sense of community and togetherness. It allows everyone to participate in a shared activity, regardless of musical ability. This creates a positive and energetic atmosphere.
Boosts Mood and Energy: Singing releases endorphins, the body's natural feel-good chemicals. This can uplift the mood of the crowd and create a more positive and energetic environment.
Improves Focus and Memory: Singing requires focus and coordination, which can improve alertness and concentration in the crowd. Additionally, singing along to familiar songs can help people remember the event more vividly.
Breaks Down Barriers: Singing can be a disarming and social activity. It can help people loosen up, break down social barriers, and feel more comfortable interacting with each other.
Interactive and Fun: Singing allows for call-and-response, participation in choruses, or even group choreography. This interactive element keeps the crowd engaged and adds a layer of fun to the event.
🎉 Random Song Generator Wheel | 101+ Best Songs Ever | 2024 Reveals
11. Host a Short Play
Check out the top 7 benefits hosting a short play to improve engagement in classes!
- Boosts Creativity and Confidence: Students involved in the writing, acting, or directing of a play get to tap into their creative sides. They learn to express themselves through different mediums and gain confidence in public speaking and performance.
- Improves Collaboration and Communication: Putting on a play is a collaborative effort. Students learn to work together, communicate effectively, and solve problems as a team.
- Enhances Literary Analysis: By delving into a short play, students gain a deeper understanding of character development, plot structure, and dramatic elements. They practice critical thinking skills as they analyze the play's message and themes.
- Makes Learning Fun and Engaging: Short plays can be a refreshing break from traditional classroom activities. They can make learning more interactive and enjoyable for students of all learning styles.
- Develops Public Speaking Skills: Even small roles in a play require students to project their voices and speak clearly in front of an audience. This practice improves their public speaking skills, which can benefit them throughout their lives.
- Builds Empathy and Understanding: Stepping into the shoes of a character allows students to explore different perspectives and develop empathy for others. Short plays can touch on a variety of topics, promoting social-emotional learning.
- Memorable Learning Experience: The process of creating and performing a play can be a memorable learning experience. Students will likely retain the lessons learned and the play's themes long after the performance.
Debates and Discussions
Guided debates and discussions are an excellent way to get students engaged. They give students an organised way to explore and express thoughts on topics they might already have strong opinions about.
They are interactive by nature, boost your students' confidence and teach them how to accept constructive criticism and respect the viewpoints of others.
Discussion topics can be selected either based on your lesson plan or you can have general discussions that could be an additional activity in class.
📌 140 Conversation Topics That Work In Every Situation | 2024 Reveals
12. Government and Citizens
Getting your students excited about general knowledge can be tough. That's why this 'Government and Citizens' game makes learning fun - it's perfect for in-person classes and one of the most interactive presentation ideas for students.
The game is pretty simple. The whole class is given a country to represent. You can ask the students to research the country and make relevant notes for the activity.
- Divide the class into different groups
- Each group is given a category to represent - citizens, office of the Mayor, Bank etc.
- Select a problem area - say, for example, "How can we make the country more sustainable?" and ask each group to raise their opinions.
- Each group can present their opinion on the same and have cross-discussions as well.
13. Debate Cards
Add a little spice to the classic debate game with customised index cards. These cards can be made out of regular paper, or you can buy plain index cards that can be customised later.
This game can help students think before an argument or rebuttal and use the resources they have to the maximum benefit.
- Make index cards (just a little more than the total number of students)
- On half of them, write "comment" and "question" on the other half
- Give one card to each student
- Choose a debate topic, and the students need to use their index cards if they want to comment on the topic or raise a question
- The students will use their cards only when they think it is necessary
- You can reward them with extra cards if they make a strong point or raise an excellent question that keeps the debate moving
14. Case study discussions
Suitable for college students
Looking for interactive presentation ideas for students? Case study discussions can be a great way to learn together as a class. Try breaking your class into small groups and share a true story that fits your subject - maybe about a company's challenge, a science puzzle, or a local problem.
With AhaSlides, students can share their thoughts using Q&A or word clouds. All their ideas show up on screen, sparking class discussions about different solutions. It's not just about finding answers - it's about learning to think deeply and work with others, just like they'll need to do in real jobs.
Take a marketing class, for instance. Show students a product that didn't sell well and let them figure out why. As they share ideas for making it better, they learn from each other's thinking. Suddenly, the lesson connects to real life.
💡 For interactive presentation ideas for students, let's check out 13 online debate games you can play with students of all ages.
More Tips from AhaSlides
Besides interactive presentation ideas for students, let's check out the following:
4 Tools to Generate Interactive Presentations
Based on these interactive presentation ideas for students, here are 4 essential tools for you to bring excitement to your classroom:
- Interactive Presentation Software: Make your classroom interactive with free live quizzes, polls, live Q&As, and brainstorming sessions. Get real-time results and feedback from your students who only need a phone to contribute.
- Interactive Whiteboards: Create, share, and make visually appealing frameworks with students. Idea boards let you do everything that you would normally do in a live classroom.
- Interactive Video Software: Seamlessly create lessons from existing videos on the internet or scratch. Some edtech video software also lets your students respond with their videos.
- Interactive Learning Management Systems: Organise, collaborate and store your teaching materials in one place with an interactive learning management system.
💡 Need more tools? Check out 20 digital classroom tools to help you craft engaging and exceptional lessons.
Frequently Asked Questions:
How do you make a presentation interactive for students?
You can add activities that get students involved, like polls, quizzes, or group discussions. To get their attention and break up the monotony of traditional slides, use pictures and other forms of media. Make it comfortable for students to share their thoughts and ideas and ask them questions. This method will help students feel engaged and like they own the learning process.
How do you present in class creatively?
Don't just use a slide show when you speak in class. Instead, use props, costumes, or role-playing to make your topic come to life. To keep students interested, add quizzes, games, or hands-on tasks that they can interact with. Don't be afraid to try out different visual tools, ways of telling a story, or even a little humour to make your presentation memorable and impactful.
