Understanding Active Learning

The following exercise is adapted from Chet Meyers' opening general session presentation at the 1994 annual Teaching for a Change conference hosted by the Community College of Aurora, Colorado. His title was "Overcoming Impediments to Active Learning." Prof. Meyers was then working at Metropolitan State University in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He urged the conference participants to make use of his ideas at their colleges. This adaptation was first published in Teaching Network News 3.1 [Sept.] 1994: 2-4. (See also the book on active learning recommended and outlined at the bottom of the page.)

What Is Good Teaching?

Task 1: Reflect for a couple of minutes on what "good teaching" means to you--when is teaching best or learning most evident? In your word processor or on paper, jot down a phrase or a metaphor or a doodle or a drawing that represents your idea of good teaching.

Interacting with Active Learning Pedagogy:

Task 2: Which of the assumptions and principles in the chart below do you already accept? Thinking of a particular course that you are teaching this term, jot in your word processor or on paper ways that you put the "Corollary Principles" into practice.

Basic Assumptions of an Active Learning "Pedagogy" Corollary Principles to Guide the Practice of Active Learning

Learning is an active process. Students learn best when applying subject matter, i.e. "learning by doing."

People learn in a variety of ways. A pedagogy is not a "template" for which one size fits all; putting square pegs into round holes wastes effort.

How we learn something today depends on what and how we learned before. Since students are not blank tablets, teachers need to build on what their students already know.

Holding "the Mirror up to Nature"

The purpose of plays and movies, some would say, is to show us human nature in ways that cause us to think. The purpose of active learning is to get students to interact with our disciplines in ways that cause reflection. Students can more readily synthesize new learning with old when they have worked with the new information and somehow made it their own.

Task 3: List in your word processor or on paper ways in which you train students to reflect on course material.

1,1,1, (1) Commitment

Task 4: Use the questions below as a worksheet to make a commitment to cause your students to reflect on 1 topic for 1 course that you are teaching in this 1 semester. This might involve only 1 class session this term. Suggestion: List the effort and the results for this task in your Faculty Evaluation.

Plan

Making a change is difficult, but let your curiosity drive you and be patient with yourself so you can learn from tinkering with a day's lesson plan or a unit's design. Highlight and copy the questions below into your word processor and answer them, or jot your answers on paper for yourself.

1. Which course will be involved?

2. Which section?

3. Which class? (List day, date, time, & place.)

4. On which single topic or principle do you want your students to reflect?

5. Suggest below some realizations you expect students might make about this topic or principle.

Action

In this section you will detail the things that you need to do to prepare your students to reflect on the topic or principle you selected.

6. What activities will the day's lesson include in order to train students and get students to apply their training?

	demonstration
	lecture & calling on individuals
	pair or group discussions
	individuals or groups computing

	individuals writing
	individuals reading
	physical or manual activity
	other:

7. What documents will you prepare for this lesson?

	directions
	reading matter
	transparency
	evaluation form
	worksheets
	sample reflections
	computer software
	other:

8. In what location will this lesson occur?

	classroom
	field site
	library
	computer lab
	workstation lab
	other:

Reflection

After students have completed the lesson, look at the results you got and the procedures you went through to decide whether to keep, modify, or abandon this lesson. These questions may be helpful:

9. Did you see enough of the students' reflections to judge their value?

10. Did the training and the students' trial run fit into the planned time--or at least a reasonable time?

11. What did you do during the students' trial run or application of training, and how did you feel about that?

12. Should you make a composite or highlights of any student work collected in order to praise their work as a class, reflect on the best, or save samples for another class?

For Further Reading

A Seminal Work

This book is so practical for all teachers that JSRCC had Jim Eisen come to the college in person to talk over teaching with the entire faculty a few years ago.

Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom by Charles C. Bonwell and James A. Eisen. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 1. Washington, D.C.: The George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development, 1991.

Contents

What Is Active Learning?
The Modified Lecture
Questioning and Discussion
Additional Strategies Promoting Active Learning
Barriers to Change in the Classroom
Conclusions and Recommendations

References

Index

Some Topics

	modified lectures
	pausing for notetaking
	demonstrations
	writing & discussion
	feedback lecture
	guided lecture
	written question responses
	pairs compare

	class discussion
	audio-visuals
	writing across the curriculum
	case studies
	Guided Design
	coop. Learning
	debates
	drama
	role playing & simulation
	peer teaching

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