Trends in higher education call for teachers to do more to provide students an engaging and meaningful classroom experience. When active learning activities are added to classes, students interact and investigate topics in an interactive manner instead of relying solely on lecture to learn content. Often planned learning activities can also serve as formative assessments which support instruction and learning as they provide feedback to both students and instructor. This paper reviews literature related to active learning and the use of formative assessments. Then five different activities that were used as formative assessments in a user-centered design course are explained. Students responded to a survey asking about the learning benefit and enjoyment of the activities. Survey results, discussion, limitations, and comments about future ideas are also included.