Active Learning Strategies: A Conversation Facilitated by Brandon Clay TU Faculty In-Service 8/17/21
Framing Questions
What is active learning?
Why does it matter?
How do we already use it well?
How can we use it more effectively moving forward?
How Do You Define Active Learning?
Take 2-3 minutes to define “active learning” individually. What does that phrase mean to you?
How Do We Define Active Learning?
Work with 1-2 partners. Discuss your definitions of active learning. Where is there overlap? Points of departure? Can you craft a definition that everyone in your group can accept?
5 minutes
Active Learning Defined: 20th Century
“instructional activities involving students in doing things and thinking about what they are doing” (Bonwell and Eison, 1991)
Promotion of active learning
focuses more on developing students’ skills than on transmitting information
requires that students do something—read, discuss, write—that requires higherorder thinking
places some emphasis on students’ explorations of their own attitudes and values
Active Learning Defined: 20th Century
Bonwell and Eison recognize that a range of activities can fall within this broad definition.
They suggest a variety of options, on a spectrum from simple (e.g., pausing lecture to allow students to clarify and organize their ideas by discussing with neighbors) to more complex (e.g., using case studies as a focal point for major assignments).
Active Learning Defined: 21st Century
The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE) provides a concise definition: active learning involves “students’ efforts to actively construct their knowledge.”
This definition is supplemented by the items that the AUSSE uses to measure active learning: working with other students on projects during class; making a presentation; asking questions or contributing to discussions; participating in a community-based project as part of a course; working with other students outside of class on assignments; discussing ideas from a course with others outside of class; tutoring peers (reported in Carr et al., 2015).
Active Learning Defined: 21st Century
Researchers collected written definitions of active learning from over 300 people attending seminars on active learning, arriving at a consensus definition that emphasizes students’ use of higher order thinking to complete activities or participate in discussion in class (Freeman et al., 2014).
Therefore, active learning is commonly defined as activities that students do to construct knowledge and understanding. The activities vary but require students to do higher order thinking.
Active Learning and Higher Order Thinking
Pause and Reflect: How Are We Already Using Active Learning Strategies?
Given these definitions, what do you already do in your classes to foster active learning? What active learning strategies do you instinctively build into your courses?
Reflect on and describe your attempts to adapt these active learning assignments/activities during the pandemic. What worked? What didn’t?
2-3 minutes
Review and Look Ahead
Theory: Background and Context for Contemporary Pedagogy
Constructivist learning theory
Individuals learn through building their own knowledge, connecting new ideas and experiences to existing knowledge and experiences to form new or enhanced understanding (Bransford et al., 1999).
Active learning approaches also often embrace the use of cooperative learning groups (Vygotsky, 1978).
Evidence Supporting Use of Active Learning Strategies
Scholars conducted a meta-analysis of 225 studies comparing “constructivist versus exposition-centered course designs” in STEM disciplines (Freeman et al., 2014).
They found that students in traditional lectures were 1.5 times more likely to fail than students in courses with active learning.
These results were consistent across STEM disciplines. The authors conclude that the evidence for the benefits of active learning are very strong, stating that, “If the experiments analyzed here had been conducted as randomized controlled trials of medical interventions, they may have been stopped for benefit—meaning that enrolling patients in the control condition might be discontinued because the treatment being tested was clearly more beneficial.”
Evidence Supporting Use of Active Learning Strategies
These results support earlier reviews (e.g., Hake, 1998; Prince, 2004; Springer et al., 1999; Ruiz-Primo et al., 2011).
While the these reviews focus on STEM disciplines and no similar reviews exist for the humanities and social sciences, the bulk of the evidence suggests that active learning approaches are effective across disciplines (Ambrose et al., 2010; Bonwell and Eison, 1991; Chickering and Gamson, 1987).
Why Active Learning Matters at TU
In addition to the evidence that active learning approaches promote learning for all students, there is some evidence that active learning approaches are an effective tool in making classrooms more inclusive.
Researchers examined the effects of active learning for first-generation college students who were enrolled in an introductory science course at the University of Washington (Haak et al., 2011). When multiple highly structured approaches to promote active learning were incorporated into the course, all students in the course benefited, but the first-generation college students demonstrated a disproportionate benefit, reducing the achievement gap to almost half of the starting level.
Active learning strategies can support CCU at TU and are likely to aid our retention efforts.
Simple, Proven Strategies to Promote Active Learning
The Pause Procedure
2 minute pause every 15 minutes, students work with partner to review notes and ask questions
(Bonwell and Eison, 1991; Rowe, 1980; Ruhl, Hughes, & Schloss, 1980)
Retrieval practice
2 minute pause every 15 minutes, students write everything they remember
(Brame and Biel, 2015)
Minute papers
Students reflect and think critically in writing for 1 minute
(Angelo and Cross, 1993; Handelsman et al., 2007)
Strip sequence
Students work together to reconstruct something presented to them in pieces
(Handelsman et al., 2007)
Concept map
Students create visual representations of relationships between concepts
(Novak and Canas, 2008)
Additional Strategies/Activities We Use to Promote Active Learning
Podcasts
Peer response
Experiential learning in DEC courses
Reflective writing
Demonstrations
Think-pair-share
Peer instruction
Case-based learning
Scavenger hunt
Games
Others?
Action Plan: This Semester
Pick one course you are teaching this semester.
Identify one active learning strategy that you do not currently use in the course.
How can you use this strategy to promote active learning in the course this Fall?
Thank You!
Please provide feedback using the link distributed via email.
Have a great semester!
References
Ambrose, S.A., Bridges, M.W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M.C., Norman, M.K., and Mayer, R.E. (2010). How learning works: seven research-based principles for smart teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Angelo, T.A. and Cross, K.P. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: a handbook for college teachers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Barkley, E. (2010). Student engagement techniques: a handbook for college faculty. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Bonwell, C. C., and Eison, J.A. (1991). Active learning: creating excitement in the classroom. ASH#-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 1, Washington, D.C.: The George Washington University, School of Education and Human Development.
Brame, C.J. and Biel, R. (2015). Test-enhanced learning: the potential for testing to promote greater learning in undergraduate science courses. CBE Life Sciences Education, 14, 1-12.
References
Bransford, J.D., Brown, A.L., and Cocking, R.R. (Eds.) (1999). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
Carr, R., Palmer, S., and Hagel, P. (2015). Active learning: the importance of developing a comprehensive measure. Active Learning in Higher Education 16, 173-186.
Chickering, A.W. and Gamson, Z.F. (1987). Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education. AAHE Bulletin March 1987, 3-7
Crouch, C.H. and Mazur, E. (2001). Peer instruction: ten years of experience and results. Am. Journal of Physics 69, 970-977.
Fagen, A.P., Crouch, C.H., and Mazur, E. (2002). Peer instruction: results from a range of classrooms. Physics Teacher 40, 206-209.
References
Freeman, S., Eddy, S.L., McDonough, M., Smith, M.K., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., and Wenderoth, M.P. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 111, 8410-8415.
Haak, D.C., HilleRisLambers, J., Pitre, E., and Freeman, S. (2011). Increased structure and active learning reduce the achievement gap in introductory biology. Science 332, 1213–1216.
Hake, R. (1998). Interactive-engagement versus traditional methods: A sixthousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses. American Journal of Physics 66, 64-74.
Handelsman, J., Miller, S., and Pfund, C. (2007). Scientific teaching. New York: W.H. Freeman.
Hyman, R.T. (1980). Improving discussion leadership. New York: Columbia University Teachers College Press.
References
Laws, P., Rosborough P, and Poodry, F. (1999).Women’s responses to an activity-based introductory physics program. American Journal of Physics 67, S32–S37.
Lorenzo, M., Crouch, C.H., Mazur, E. (2006). Reducing the gender gap in the physics classroom. American Journal of Physics 74, 118–122.
Lumpkin, A., Achen, R., and Dodd,R. (2015). Student perceptions of active learning. College Student Journal 49, 121-133.
Novak, J.D. and Canas, A.J. (2008). The theory underlying concept maps and how to construct and use them. Technical Report IHMC CmapTools 2006-01 Rev 2008-01 (retrieved from http://cmap.ihmc.us/docs/theory-of-concept-maps).
Prince, M. (2004). Does active learning work? A review of the research. Journal of Engineering Education 93, 223-231.
References
Rowe, M.B. (1980). Pausing principles and their effects on reasoning in science. In Teaching the Sciences, edited by F. B. Brawer. New Directions for Community Colleges No. 31. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Ruhl, K., Hughes, C.A., and Schloss, P.J. (1987). Using the Pause Procedure to enhance lecture rcall. Teacher Education and Special Education 10, 14-18.
Ruiz-Primo, M.A., Briggs, D., Iverson, H., Talbot, R., Shepard, L.A. (2011). Impact of undergraduate science course innovations on learning. Science 331, 1269–1270.
Schneider, M. (2001). Encouragement of women physics majors at Grinnell College: A case study. Phys. Teach. 39, 280–282.
Springer, L., Stanne, M.E., Donovan, S.S. (1999). Effects of small-group learning on undergraduates in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology. Rev. Educ. Res. 69, 21–51.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.