Active learning and active learning strategies

Active Learning and
Active Learning Strategies
How to successfully engage any learner in all learning situations

Active learning is...
Any instructional approach in which
all students are asked to engage in the
learning process
Source adapted from :www.cei.umn.edu
A form of learning that places more
responsibility for learners with learning
materials through discussions, problem
solving, case studies, role plays, and
other teaching methods
Source adapted from :www.queensu.ca

help to initiate learners and faculty
into effective ways to help learners
engage in activities based on ideas
about how people learn
Active Learning Strategies...
Learning strategies are ways to
assist in learning
Source adapted from :www.teaching.berkeley.edu
Source adapted from :www.teaching.berkeley.edu

Active learning is related to other instructional methods that closely involve
learners in the knowledge constructions process, including:
Student-centred
learning, where the
diverse learning needs
rather than the need to
push through content,
are at the centre of the
learning process.
Problem-based learning, a
problem or scenario that
requires to formulate
questions, analyze evidence,
connect evidence to pre-
existing theories, derive
conclusions, and reflect on
learning.
Experiential learning,
engaging in authentic
learning activities that
replicate situations or
problems might encounter
in real life or in a work
situation
Source adapted from: uwaterloo.ca

Getting learners engaged in active learning through
active learning strategies

Research supports Active Learning
as an effective teaching and learning approach

Freeman and colleagues in 2014
conducted a meta-analysis of 225
studies that examined the design of
class sessions (as opposed to out-of-
class work or laboratories) with at least
some active learning versus traditional
lecturing, comparing failure rates and
student scores on examinations,
concept inventories, or other
assessments. They found that students
in traditional lectures were 1.5 times
more likely to fail than students in
courses with active learning.
Source document and image adapated from :https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/59/Active-Learning.pdf
Active learning minimizes failure rates

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. Although not always explicitly
noted, metacognition—students’ thinking about their own learning—is
an important element, providing the link between activity and learning.
Active learning bridges activity and learning
Source document and image adapated from :https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/59/Active-Learning.pdf

A research by Bonwell and Eison in 1991 explicitly recognize a spectrum of activities
to promote active learning, ranging from very 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 decision-making)
Active learning is a spectrum of activities

Turn Passive Learning into
Active Learning
Source adapted from :www.heatherhaupt.com

PRINCIPLES of Active Learning
Learning is active construction of meaning by the learner.
Learning facts and learning to do are two different processes.
Learning can be specific to the learning domain or context
(subject matter or course) or can be readily transferred to other
domains.
Learning with people is likely more effective than learning alone.
Learning is meaningful when facilitated by articulating
explanations, whether to one’s self, peers, or teachers.
Source adapted from :www.facultyfocus.com

Learning is active
construction of meaning
by the learner
Learners link new information with
information that they already know.
New and old information are
assembled into mental models

.
Knowledge comes with practice and
feedback.Solving problems should be
more than right or wrong
answer.Sequence problems from easy
to hard.Move to harder problems after
every learning improvement.
Learning facts and
learning to do are two
different processes

Learning can be specific
to learning domain or
context (subject matter or
course) or transferred to
other domains
Learners ability or skills to transfer
knowledge learned in one subject
to another topic or situations.

.
Get learners to work together to
learn.Assist learners to become
independent learners and be accepting
to learn with others.Incorporate group
learning activities wherever possible.
Learning with people
is likely more effective
than learning alone

Learning is meaningful
when facilitated by
articulating explanations,
whether to one’s self,
peers, or teachers.
Speaking or writing makes
clear what learners do and
don’t understand.Their
understanding deepens as they
frame a description that is
meaningful to them

Examples of Active Learning Activities

How
1. The instructor tells the students they are about to begin a discussion of a specific
issue or problem, but they are allowed to contribute only if they are holding the
“discussion mitten” (or a similar item such as a stuffed toy).
2. The instructor begins the discussion by tossing the mitten to one of the students.
After contributing to the discussion, that student throws the mitten to another
student, who also contributes. That student then throws the mitten to yet another
student, and the discussion continues in this way until the issue or problem has been
sufficiently explored.
Why
● Gamifying the discussion in this way encourages reticent students to contribute to
the discussion.
● This activity prevents one or two students from dominating the discussion.
Other thoughts
● If a student catches the mitten but has nothing to contribute, he or she can toss the
mitten to someone else but then has to post a relevant contribution to the course’s
online discussion forum at a later time.
● At the end of the mitten throwing, the instructor can ask if there was anyone who
didn’t catch the mitten who would still like to speak.
MITTEN DISCUSSION

How
1. The instructor introduces an issue or scenario such as the following: while buying
groceries, a dermatologist notices that an elderly man standing next to her seems to
have a cancerous mole on the back of his neck; should she inform him of this
concern?
2. The instructor then asks the students to line up according to where they stand on
the issue: one end of the classroom represents “Yes, she should absolutely tell him,”
the opposite end represents “No, she absolutely should not tell him,” and the space in
between represents positions such as “I’m not sure,” “It depends,” “Probably yes,
“Probably no,” and so on.
3. Once the students have finished lining up, the instructor asks them to discuss their
opinion with those around them. Or, alternatively, the instructor asks each student to
pair up with a student who is “far away” to discuss their diverging opinions with each
other.
Why
● Getting students to discern their position on an issue in relation to their peers
encourages them to think about and clarify their reasons for holding that position.
Other thoughts
● For more complex issues, all four corners of a room can be used to represent varying
opinions.
OPINION LINEUP

How
1. The instructor provides the students with a question or problem, and then gives each
of them three or four sticky notes.
2. On each of their sticky notes, students write down one idea.
3. Students stick their notes onto a wall or whiteboard, and then collaborate on moving
them around in order to sort the ideas into categories.
Why
● This activity combines brainstorming (jotting down the ideas) with critical thinking
(organizing the ideas into categories).
Other thoughts
● The instructor might consider taking a picture of the categorized sticky notes and
posting it the course’s discussion forum so that students can refer to it later.
STICKY-NOTE CLUSTERING

How
1. The instructor discusses an issue or case study with students until they have
generated a handful of different perspectives.
2. The instructor writes each perspective onto a large sheet of paper, and hangs each
sheet in a different part of the classroom.
3. The instructor gives each student five (or so) sticky dots and the students walk to
each sheet to allocate their dots according to how strongly they support a given
perspective: if they totally support one perspective, they can put all of their dots on
that sheet; if they support several perspectives, they can place two sticky dots on one
sheet and three on another, or even one sticky dot on each sheet.
4. Students visually assess the distribution of sticky dots.
Why
● The distribution of sticky dots represents the opinion of the class as a whole and can
be used as a prompt for further discussion, or as a way of narrowing down which
perspectives will receive further attention in class.
Other thoughts
● Instead of sticky dots, students can simply be told that they have five checkmarks to
allocate as they wish, using markers located beside each sheet of paper.
DOTMOCRACY

How
1. The instructor asks for four or five volunteers from the class to step forward to perform a given task.
The task might be a physical procedure such as preparing a specimen slide for a microscope, or an
analytic activity such as debating the pros and cons of an issue.
2. As the group of volunteers engage in the task (in a virtual “fishbowl”), the other students observe, taking
notes or assessing their performance. The instructor can ask the observing students to focus on
specific aspects – for example, if the students in the fishbowl are engaging in a debate, the instructor
might ask the other students to jot down the assumptions that those students are tacitly making. Or, if
the task is a physical procedure, the instructor might ask the observing students to identify ways that
the task could be performed more effectively, or simply differently.
3. After the students in the fishbowl have completed their task, the other students report on what they
observed or what they learned from watching.
Why
● The fishbowl activity works well in large classes where it might not be possible for everyone to engage
in the same task: the students in the fishbowl act as proxy learners for their peers.
● The observing students learn not by doing the task but by reflecting on how the task is being done.
Other thoughts
● Instead of reporting on what they observed immediately after the fishbowl task has been completed,
students could do so at a later time in an online discussion group.
FISHBOWL

How
1. The instructor writes a different issue, question, or problem onto four or five large sheets of paper, and
then hangs those sheets around the classroom.
2. The instructor asks the students to form groups of about five members each.
3. Each group goes to a different sheet of paper and for three or four minutes they jot down some ideas
pertaining to the issue that is written on it.
4. Each group then rotates around to the next sheet of paper and they jot down their ideas pertaining to
that issue. They can add new ideas, they can propose counterpoints to the ideas written by the
previous group, or they can endorse an idea written down by the previous group by putting a check
mark beside it.
5. The groups keep rotating from sheet to sheet until each group has commented on all the issues. Each
group then returns to its original sheet and assesses or synthesizes what has been written there.
6. A member from each group reports back to the class as a whole.
Why
● This collaborative activity promotes deep learning by encouraging students to build on or critique
each other’s ideas.
Other thoughts
● Cumulative brainstorming can also be done in a small group: each student in the group jots down an
idea pertaining to a different problem or issue. Each student then hands their sheet of paper to the
student on the left (clockwise), who adds an idea or comment to the sheet of paper they have just
received. This continues until all the students have commented on all the sheets.
CUMULATIVE BRAINSTORMING

How
1. Tell your students that you will write onto the whiteboard everything they know, or think they know,
about a given topic. You can have them call out the information or, for a more orderly approach, have
them raise their hands before speaking (or use the mitten discussion activity described above).
2. For example, on the first day of Shakespeare course, the instructor might ask students to share
everything they know about that author. One student might comment that he was born in the sixteenth
century. Another student might say that he lived at the same time as Queen Elizabeth I. Another might
add that he wrote Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet. Even if a student contributes something
that’s incorrect – such as, "Shakespeare visited North America" – the instructor writes it down on the
whiteboard.
3. The activity continues until the students can’t think of anything further, or until the topic is sufficiently
explored for the time being.
4. The instructor then asks the students to organize the information into categories – such as
Shakespeare’s life, his plays, sixteenth century politics, and so on.
5. The instructor then comments on the various pieces of information that students have contributed,
making connections, elaborating, and correcting any errors.
Why
● This activity helps students feel involved and engaged in the process of accumulating and then
synthesizing information.
Other thoughts
● This activity could be done online by means of a wiki (such as a Google document): many students can
add information to the document at the same time.
CROWDSOURCING

How
1. The instructor projects a multiple-choice question onto the classroom’s screen.
2. Without consulting a peer, students use their clickers to respond to the question.
3. The clicker system turns the responses into a bar graph: how many chose “A,” how many chose “B,” and so on. The
instructor projects the bar chart onto the screen for the students to consider.
4. The instructor projects the same question, but this time asks students to discuss it in small groups for a few
minutes.
5. The students use their clickers to again respond to the question.
6. The instructor projects the new bar graph and explains what the correct response is and why.
Why
● This activity leverages peer instruction: students explain their reasoning to each other, and learn from each other
(studies have shown that peer instruction does help students learn).
● The clickers help to “gamify” the activity, making it more enjoyable to students.
Other notes
● The results of the second bar graph can help the instructor decide what to do next: if most of the students chose
the correct response, then the instructor can briefly explain why it is correct; but if most of the students still chose
the incorrect response, then the instructor will probably spend more time reviewing the material before
proceeding.
● This activity works best when it’s done recurrently in a class: the instructor briefly explains a concept, then does
the clicker activity as described above, then briefly explains the next concept, then does another clicker activity,
and so on. Typically, in an hour-long class, an instructor might ask three to five clicker questions.
CLICKERS

How
1. Pose a question, problem, or scenario to your students and ask them to think about
it individually for a few minutes.
2. Next, have your students form pairs in which they discuss their respective ideas.
3. Invite students to share the results of their paired thinking with the entire class.
Why
● Having students explain their ideas to a peer helps them clarify their own thinking.
● Students are more willing to share an idea with the whole class after first sharing it
with a peer.
Other thoughts
● You can take the activity further: after the students have finished their paired
discussion, each pair can join with another pair of students to further discuss their
ideas.
THINK-PAIR-SHARE

How
1. Give your students one minute to jot down a response to a question such as “What was the
most important thing you learned during this class?”, “What is still unclear?”, or “Summarize
the unit we just completed in one sentence.”
2. Invite (but don’t require) your students to leave their responses with you as they leave the
class.
Why
● Getting students to distill a presentation or unit of learning into a single statement or
question helps them deepen their learning.
● The one-minute reflections, if students share them with the instructor, can give that
instructor a “snapshot” of what they are thinking, what they have learned, and what aspects
of the topic are still unclear.
Other thoughts
● One-minute reflections tend to be conducted at the end of a class, but they are also effective
at other times, such as when a unit of material has been completed and another one is about
to be undertaken.
ONE-MINUTE REFLECTION

How
1. The instructor selects four students to represent the pro side of an issue and four for
the con side. The remaining students serve as the audience or “judges” of the debate.
2. The two teams take turns putting forth arguments, making rebuttals, and
summarizing, as in any standard debate format.
3. After the debate is over, the students who are acting as judges report on their
assessment of the debate.
Why
● A structured debate gives the debaters practice in finding evidence and devising
arguments; it also gives the students who are watching the debate practice in
critically assessing evidence and arguments.
Other thoughts
● It’s a good idea to provide the students who are acting as judges with a rubric that
will help them identify and assess the various aspects of the debate.
STRUCTURED DEBATES

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