"Incorporate active learning into your curriculum and transform your classroom into an exciting, dynamic learning environment!!!".

Active learning is generally defined as any instructional method that engages students in the learning process." Active learning" means students engage with the material, participate in the class, and collaborate with each other. Don't expect your students simply to listen and memorize; instead, have them help demonstrate a process, analyze an argument, or apply a concept to a real-world situation. In short, active learning requires students to do meaningful learning activities and think about what they are doing.

ACTIVE LEARNING

Active learning is generally defined as any instructional method that engages students in the learning process. In short, active learning requires students to do meaningful learning activities and think about what they are doing. While this definition could include traditional activities such as homework, in practice, active learning refers to activities that are introduced into the classroom. The core elements of active learning are student activity and engagement in the learning process.

Active learning is often contrasted to the traditional lecture where students passively receive information from the instructor. In the traditional approach to college teaching, most class time is spent with the professor lecturing and the students watching and listening. The students work individually on assignments, and cooperation is limited.

Such teacher centered instructional methods have repeatedly been found inferior to instruction that involves active learning, in which students solve problems, answer questions, formulate questions of their own, discuss, explain, debate, or brainstorm during class.

Example "active" activities include: class discussion, small group discussion, debate, posing questions to the class, think - pair - share activities, short written exercises and polling the class(Bonwell and Eison, 1991).

A class discussion may be held in person or in an online environment. It is best that these discussions be centered on an open - ended (occasionally controversial) topic (e.g. one that has no right or wrong answer).

A small group discussion is a similar activity between individual, groups, or teams of individuals. A presidential debate is a common debate format. But these also may center around controversial or political topic.

A think-pair-share activity is when learners take a minute to ponder the previous lesson, later to discuss it with one or more of their peers, finally to share it with the class a part of a formal discussion.

A short written exercise that is often used is the "one minute paper." In this exercise students are asked to summarize the day's discussion in a short paper to be turned in before the end of class. This is a good way to review materials.

Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom

Research consistently has shown that traditional lecture methods, in which professors talk and students listen, dominate college and university classrooms. It is therefore important to know the nature of active learning, the empirical research on its use, the common obstacles and barriers that give rise to faculty members' resistance to interactive instructional techniques, and how faculty, faculty developers, administrators, and educational researchers can make real the promise of active learning.

WHAT IS ACTIVE LEARNING AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Surprisingly, educators' use of the term "active learning" has relied more on intuitive understanding than a common definition. Consequently, many faculty assert that all learning is inherently active and that students are therefore actively involved while listening to formal presentations in the classroom. Analysis of the research literature (Checkering and Gamson 1987), however, suggests that students must do more than just listen: They must read, write, discuss, or be engaged in solving problems. Most important, to be actively involved, students must engage in such higher - order thinking tasks as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Within this context, it is proposed that strategies promoting active learning be defined as instructional activities involving students in doing things and thinking about what they are doing.

Use of these techniques in the classroom is vital because of their powerful impact upon students' learning. For example, several studies have shown that students prefer strategies promoting active learning to traditional lectures. Other research studies evaluating students' achievement have demonstrated that many strategies promoting active learning are comparable to lectures in promoting the mastery of content but superior to lectures in promoting the development of students' skills in thinking and writing. Further, some cognitive research has shown that a significant number of individuals have learning styles best served by pedagogical techniques other than lecturing. Therefore, a thoughtful and scholarly approach to skillful teaching requires that faculty become knowledgeable about the many ways strategies promoting active learning have been successfully used across the disciplines. Further, each faculty member should engage in self-reflection, exploring his or her personal willingness to experiment with alternative approaches to instruction.

HOW CAN ACTIVE LEARNING BE INCORPORATED IN THE CLASSROOM?

The modification of traditional lectures (Penner 1984) is one way to incorporate active learning in the classroom. Research has demonstrated, for example, that if a faculty member allows students to consolidate their notes by pausing three times for two minutes each during a lecture, students will learn significantly more information (Ruhl, Hughes, and Schloss 1987). Two other simple yet effective ways to involve students during a lecture are to insert brief demonstrations or short, ungraded writing exercises followed by class discussion. Certain alternatives to the lecture format further increase student level of engagement: (1) the feedback lecture, which consists of two minilectures separated by a small -group study session built around a study guide, and (2) the guided lecture, in which students listen to a 20 -to 30- minute presentation without taking notes, followed by their writing for five minutes what they remember and spending the remainder of the class period in small groups clarifying and elaborating the material.

Discussion in class is one of the most common strategies promoting active learning_with good reason. If the objectives of a course are to promote long- term retention of information, to motivate students toward further learning, to allow students to apply information in new settings, or to develop students' thinking skills, then discussion is preferable to lecture (McKeachie et al. 1986). Research has suggested, however, that to achieve these goals faculty must be knowledgeable of alternative techniques and strategies for questioning and discussion (Hyman 1980) and must create a supportive intellectual and emotional environment that encourages students to take risks (Lowman 1984).

Several additional strategies promoting active learning have been similarly shown to influence favorably students' attitudes and achievement. Visual - based instruction, for example, can provide a helpful focal point for other interactive techniques. In -class writing across the disciplines is another productive way to involve students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing. Two popular instructional strategies based on problem - solving model include the case study method of instruction and Guided Design. Other active learning pedagogies worthy of instructors' use include cooperative learning, debates,drama, role playing and simulation, and peer teaching. In short, the published literature on alternatives totraditional class room presentations provides a rich menu of different approaches faculty can readily add to their repertoire of instructional skills.

How active learning works

All active learning methods aim to turn students from passive note-takers into engaged scientific thinkers. Loertscher's technique is process-oriented guided inquiry learning (POGIL), initiated in Seattle University chemistry classes by Vicky Minderhout Thorsell. Other methods include case-based and problem-based learning, common in medical schools, and flipped classrooms, in which students watch video lectures as homework and work on problems in class. Implementing these approaches isn't easy but can be rewarding.

"Inquiry-based learning makes people uncomfortable," says Minderhout Thorsell. "You're guiding students toward conclusions so you don't directly answer questions, which can be frustrating for everyone." To understand how and why active learning works, she says, think of it as coaching. During a soccer practice, players are on the field, getting guidance from the coach. They don't sit on the bench listening and then work out later at home. "How can you learn to do science," asks Minderhout Thorsell, "if you don't practice it with others?"

Students in active learning classes complain about the blind-leading-the-blind feeling of discussing information they haven't yet mastered. Many appreciate, though, that they stay awake in class, have frequent interactions with faculty, and although initially challenged, ultimately learn more. "We say if you're not struggling, you're not learning," says Minderhout Thorsell.

By engaging students in class, professors give students more responsibility for their own learning. Active learning also provides opportunities for students to practice crucial job skills, including working in teams and solving open-ended problems. For faculty, active learning can make teaching more satisfying. "Since we spend a lot of class time building scientific arguments and communicating them," Loertscher says, "I can ask higher-level exam questions. The students expect them and know I'll demand rigorous answers." Don't expect higher student evaluation scores, though. Loertscher says that after switching from traditional lectures to inquiry-based classes, she got more strongly positive and negative comments, but overall, her average student evaluations didn't change.

WHAT ARE THE BARRIERS?

To address adequately why most faculty have not embraced recent calls for educational reform, it is necessary first to identify and understand common barriers to instructional change, including the powerful influence of educational tradition; faculty self - perceptions and self - definition of roles; the discomfort and anxiety that change creates; and the limited incentives for faculty to change.

But certain specific obstacles are associated with the use of active learning including limited class time; a possible increase in preparation time; the potential difficulty of using active learning in large classes; and a lack of needed materials, equipment, or resources. Perhaps the single greatest barrier of all, however, is the fact that faculty members' efforts to employ active learning involve risk the risks that students will not participate, use higher order thinking, or learn sufficient content, that faculty members will feel a loss of control, lack necessary skills, or be criticized for teaching in unorthodox ways. Each obstacle or barrier and type of risk, however, can be successfully overcome through careful, thoughtful planning.

WHAT CONCLUSIONS SHOULD BE DRAWN AND RECOMMENDATIONS MADE?

The reform of instructional practice in higher education must begin with faculty members' efforts. An excellent first step is to select strategies promoting active learning that one can feel comfortable with. Such low risk strategies are typically of short duration, structured and planned, focused on subject matter that is neither too abstract nor too controversial, and familiar to both the faculty member and the students.

Faculty developers can help stimulate and support faculty members' efforts to change by highlighting the instructional importance of active learning in the newsletters and publications they distribute. Further, the use of active learning should become both the subject matter of faculty development workshops and the instructional method used to facilitate such programs. And it is important that faculty developers recognize the need to provide follow - up to, and support for, faculty members' efforts to change.

Academic administrators can help these initiatives by recognizing and rewarding excellent teaching in general and the adoption of instructional innovations in particular. Comprehensive programs to demonstrate this type of administrative commitment (Cochran 1989) should address institutional employment policies and practices, the allocation of adequate resources for instructional development, and the development of strategic administrative action plans. Equally important is the need for more rigorous research to provide a scientific foundation to guide future practices in the classroom. Currently, most published articles on active learning have been descriptive accounts rather than empirical investigations, many are out of date, either chronologically or methodologically, and a large number of important conceptual issues have never been explored. New qualitative and quantitative research should examine strategies that enhance students' learning from presentations; explore the impact of previously overlooked, yet educationally significant, characteristics of students, such as gender, different learning styles, or stage of intellectual development; and be disseminated in journals widely read by faculty.

In retrospect, it appears that previous classroom initiatives and written materials about active learning have all too often been isolated and fragmented. The resulting pedagogical efforts have therefore lacked coherence, and the goal of interactive classrooms has remained unfulfilled. Through the coordinated efforts of individual faculty, faculty developers, academic administrators, and educational researchers,however, higher education in the coming decade CAN make real the promise of active learning.

Promoting Active Learning

"Active learning" means students engage with the material, participate in the class, and collaborate with each other. Don't expect your students simply to listen and memorize; instead, have them help demonstrate a process, analyze an argument, or apply a concept to a real-world situation.

 

The Importance of Active Learning

Whether you’re facing a lecture hall filled with 300 students or a seminar table with 15 students, one of your primary goals for the class should be to actively engage students with the material. Students learn more when they participate in the process of learning, whether it’s through discussion, practice, review, or application (Grunert, 1997). This is in stark contrast to traditional styles of teaching, where students are expected to sit for hours, listening and, theoretically, absorbing information presented by the instructor.

Incorporate active learning strategies into every component of your course design. For example, encouraging short partner discussions during lectures (i.e., think-pair-share), adding problem- or case-based research projects to the curriculum, and incorporating time for small-group critical analysis exercises during seminars are all great ways to actively engage students in learning.

Because it can take time and creativity to develop active learning exercises, we provide many examples on the Teaching Commons website, particularly in Teaching Strategies. Keep reading for some sample strategies to help get you started.

Facilitate independent, critical, and creative thinking

Ask students to analyze, synthesize, or apply material, both during lectures and in assignments. Some examples include:

• Case-based problem solving exercises – these types of exercises help students develop analytical skills and learn how to apply academic theories to real-world problems. Use case studies in a lecture and have students work out their solutions independently or in small groups, or use case studies as the basis for major projects or exams.
• Debate – this is another active learning technique that helps develop critical thinking and logical reasoning skills. Present competing viewpoints in lecture and assign students to defend one, or both, of the viewpoints in a short (five-minute) written exercise or classroom debate. 

Encourage effective collaboration

Collaborative group work can be an extremely useful addition to a large class. Some examples include:

• Small-group discussions– there are many benefits to taking short think-pair-share breaks during a lecture. These small-group discussions help students understand and retain material, while also serving the broader goals of developing their communication skills and increasing their awareness of their classmates as learning resources.
• Peer instruction exercises– one minute paper reflections or speed problem solving questions, paired with peer to peer discussion, can be a very effective teaching strategy. Upon completion of the question and at least one iteration, tally the answers. Once the results are in, explain the correct answer and demonstrate why the other options are misleading (Mazur, 1997). 

Research from cognitive psychology has shown that one of the best ways to improve understanding is to teach material to a peer (Topping and Stewart, 1998). Build this exercise into your classes through presentations, study groups, and quick, breakout “teaching” sessions, such as the one described above.

Increase student investment, motivation, and performance

When you invite students to actively participate in the learning environment, they take more responsibility for their performance in the course. Similarly, when they have an opportunity to make decisions about what they learn and how they use that knowledge, students see a course as more valuable and more directly related to their goals. For example:

• Brainstorm learning objectives – if you involve students in the development of classroom activities, e.g., allow them to choose the topic of a short discussion or generate ideas about how a concept could be applied to a problem that interests them, it automatically increases engagement levels. Involving students in classroom activities also requires them to assess their understanding and skill and rather than allowing them to rest comfortably with a surface knowledge, it forces them to develop a deeper understanding of the material.

Incorporate active learning into your curriculum and transform your classroom into an exciting, dynamic learning environment.

Active Learning Strategies

Active Learning Strategies help to initiate learners and faculty into effective ways to help learners engage in activities based on ideas about how people learn. Multiple active learning strategies may be used in each of the active learning designs. Here’s an annotated list of active learning strategies.

1. Sit & talk with peers nearby

Think-Pair- Share.

1. Define “Think-Pair-Share.” Explain to students that a Think-Pair-Share allows them to activate their prior knowledge and share ideas about content or beliefs with peers. This structure gives students a chance to organize their ideas—first in their own minds, then in a smaller group setting before sharing with the entire group. In a Think-Pair-Share, students Think individually about the question or idea(s) put forth, Pair up with someone to discuss their thinking, and then Share their conversation with their table group, and then finally with the whole group.

2. Display Think-Pair-Share prompts about a concept or topic. Give students 1-2 minutes to think about the prompt on their own. Then discuss with a partner for another few minutes.

3. Facilitate a whole group discussion.

• Listen to their responses.
• Ask students to elaborate on their thinking by providing explanations, evidence, or clarifications. Suggested probing questions:
• What makes you think that?
• Please give an example from your experience.
• What do you mean?
• Try to stay neutral in your reaction to students’ comments.
• Invite others to react and respond to ideas by providing alternative viewpoints, agreements or disagreements. Suggested probing questions:
• Can anyone add something to that comment?
• Who would like to share an alternative opinion?

Quick write

A prompt is posed for students to respond to in writing. Taking only 5 minutes or so, this is a quick way to accomplish one or more of the following: determine whether or not students have done the homework assignment, engage students in thinking about the topic that will be covered in the session, provides the opportunity for students to access their prior knowledge on a topic. The quick write can be graded to encourage students to do their reading assignment, or collected to serve as an attendance check.

Turn and Talk

In a turn and talk, a question is posed to the class and students simply turn to the person next to them to discuss. This can serve as a comfortable way for students to share their ideas with others and set the stage for them sharing with the larger group. The instructor doesn’t need to hear all (or any) of the ideas shared– the important aspect of this strategy is for the peers to share and for individuals to access their prior knowledge about a topic. Example prompt: Ask students to turn to someone next to them and discuss their responses to the following question. Tell them to take two minutes to discuss this with their partner with each person getting some time to talk.

• Part of the challenge of communicating climate change with the public is that there is disparity between what scientists and the non-scientist public think and know about climate change.
• Why do you think there is such a disparity

Polling

Having students vote anonymously on what they perceive as the best explanation/answer to a question,followed by opportunities to discuss their ideas with peers, and then to vote again leads to greater learning of the material. It is important to have students discuss why they think their explanation is the most accurate and also why the other explanations proposed are not accurate. It is also important that the teacher looks at the polling results and listens to the reasoning of the students in order to determine what further explanations and summary might need to be made in lecture. There are various tools that can beused for polling, including Clickers, Socrative.com and Poll.Everywhere.com.

Individual plus Group Quizzes

Give students a quiz that they complete individually and turn in to be graded. Immediately following the individual quiz, put students in small groups and have them take the quiz again, but this time they discuss the answers in their group and turn it in for a group score. Both quizzes are graded and if the group score is higher, the two grades are averaged. The group score can’t hurt someone if they have a higher individual score. This encourages individual accountability, and also helps students to better understand the material as they discuss it with peers. In this way, they keep up with the material, rather than realizing they don’t totally understand it when they reach the midterm.

Tests/Quizzes with common preconceptions as distractors

Design assessments to include common preconceptions (or misconceptions) that students often hold. Allow students to answer the question on their own and then discuss their answer and rationale with a partner. Have them answer the question again after the peer discussion. Elicit a whole group discussion about why the correct answer is correct and why the others are not. Common misconceptions students have about STEM topics and concepts can be found at AAAS, and assessment questions including common misconceptions as distractors can be found at Braincandy.

Jigsaws

Students work in small groups to read information that has been organized into sections. Each student inthe group reads one section of the material and then shares that information with the rest of their group.As they read and share information, they refer to prompts such as: what do you think each idea means?What is the big idea? How can this idea be applied to help understand the concept(s)? What questions do you have about what you read? What do you agree/not agree with?

There are various permutations of jigsaws. One such model include expert and cooperative groups: Each group can be assigned a particular aspect/part of the overall information – they read it individually and then discuss in their small “expert” group to make sure they all understand it. Then new “cooperative”groups are formed made up of one-two students from each of the original expert groups. In this way, the new groups have an “expert” representative from each of the original groups so that all of the information is now represented in the new cooperative group. The “expert” has had a chance to practice sharing and hearing other viewpoints about the information in their original group, and therefore likely feels more comfortable sharing in the new group.

Sorting strips

Small bits of information are separated into strips so that students can sort the strips into various categories, or organize them into a sequence depending on the topic. This strategy encourages discussion of competing ideas or organizations or order in which a process would take place. In this case, it is often the discussion and sharing of ideas that is the most important outcome of the activity.

Partial Outlines/PPTs provided for lecture

Research has shown that students have a better understanding, do better on exams, and stay more engaged with the content during lecture when they are provided with partial, rather than complete lecture notes or PowerPoints.

Pausing in lecture

These strategies work towards inserting wait time in lectures for students to reflect on, discuss and apply ideas just presented and to encourage them to engage actively in the lecture rather than passively taking notes. These strategies also help students to understand what they do and don’t understand about the lecture.

• ask students to not take notes as you work through a problem on the board with the class,followed by 5 minutes for them to copy down board and discuss the problem/chemical reaction/process with peers 
• pause 6-10 seconds after asking a question before calling on a student to respond have students do a quick write about a concept just covered in lecture (e.g. their understanding, two questions they have about the concept as presented, what they would like to know more about etc.); optional, collect the quick write to help you better understand what they understood from the lecture and the questions they have and to keep them engaged
• turn and talks – ask peers to talk to each other about what they do and don’t understand and/or share with each other what they wrote down in their notes about a particular concept just covered in lecture. Encourage students to add to their notes from the discussion
• have students apply their understanding of a concept just covered by working with a small group around a huddle board. Optional, have a few groups share their work and elicit reactions and reviews from other students. Summarize findings and scientific normative explanations.
• Have students do think-pair-shares, polling to keep their mind engaged in the topic and to share their ideas with their peers for greater meaning-making opportunities.

2. Requires students moving around

Posters & gallery walk

Give groups of students an assignment that they need to work on together and present their ideas on a sheet of chart paper. Once they have completed their poster, have them display it on the wall, much like at a scientific poster session. One of their group will stay with the poster and help to explain it as the class circulates to look at all of the posters. Students take turns standing by their poster so that each of them have the chance to visit the other groups’ posters. This sets up a more interactive way of presenting as compared to ppt presentations.

Fish bowl

A fish bowl allows a small group of students to engage in a discussion about ideas or concepts that have alternative explanations while the rest of the class observes and takes notes. An inner circle of students engages in the discussion, while the rest of the class either sits in an outer circle, or remains in their regular seats and observes. If you have your class organized into small groups, then the members of each group can tap their respective teammate and replace them in the inner circle to expand on or provide additional evidence to support an explanation. Optional: the entire class needs to take part in the inner circle conversation by the end of the class period.

Idea line up

The idea line up is a structure that allows a teacher to use the diversity of perspectives in the classroom to generate heterogeneous groups of students for discussion. This diversity of thinking is a good place from which to develop a classroom climate that supports argumentation. More student-initiated science talk happens when students are connected with peers who have opposing perspectives (Clark & Sampson, 2007). The question should be one about which students have enough prior knowledge/experience to have some evidence to bring to bear in the discussions which ensue.

How it works: The teacher provides a question that (s)he knows may have a continuum of responses, especially if it is asked prior to collecting significant amounts of evidence or before students have the opportunity to synthesize the evidence they have already collected.

The question is displayed prominently for students to consider. Students are directed to position themselves on a line to indicate their level of agreement in response to the question. After the students line up, have students talk to the person next to them so they can clarify their own thinking on why they positioned themselves on the line in a particular spot.

Student positions on the line typically indicate a diversity of thinking. The teacher can then use their positions to form groups of students with differing ideas about the question. Students then discuss their thinking and reasoning for their responses with the peers with whom they have been matched.Students should be prompted to listen carefully to each other’s claims and evidence and respond with evidence to counter or support the claims of other students in their group. A group claims and evidence chart or small whiteboards can be used to collect student thinking.

If the activity is used prior to an investigation, students can use the ideas from the initial discussion to continually weigh against the evidence they gather from their investigations. If the activity is used after an investigation, but prior to a whole-group meaning-making discussion, ideas from the small group discussions can be used to prepare for a whole group discussion.

Four corners

Four corners is used for the same reasons as the idea line up. The only difference is that students are considering several claims (responses to a question). For example, a teacher might ask, “Where does most of the mass in a plant come from?” Claims for consideration might include, “soil,” “air,”“water,” and “sunlight.”

How it works: The teacher displays the question prominently for all to consider. Each corner of the classroom is assigned one claim, also prominently displayed. Students are asked to go to the corner of the classroom that has the claim they agree with most. If they think more than one answer is correct,they should just pick one of the corners they agree with. If they don’t agree with any claims, they should go to the middle of the room. Once in their corners, students should discuss with others why they chose that corner to help clarify their thinking. Have them share and record evidence that supports that claim and why the other claims are not supported. Optional: have them visit the other corners to see what others thought about the ideas and the evidence they put forth.

• Just as in the idea line up the teacher can use the student positions around the room to form groups with a diversity of ideas. The rest of the instructions are the same as for the idea line up.

What is an active learning style?

Active learning is a form of learning in which teaching strives to involve students in the learning process more directly than in other methods. ... Bonwell (1991) "states that in active learning, students participate in the process and students participate when they are doing something besides passively listening."

What is an example of active learning?

In active learning teachers are facilitators rather than one way providers of information. ... Other examples of active learning techniques include role-playing, case studies, group projects, think-pair-share, peer teaching, debates, Just-in-Time Teaching, and short demonstrations followed by class discussion.

Active learning is a student centered approach in which the responsibility for learning is placed upon the student, often working in collaboration with classmates. In active learning teachers are facilitators rather than one way providers of information. The presentation of facts, so often introduced through straight lecture, is deemphasized in favor of class discussion, problem solving, cooperative learning, and writing exercises (graded and ungraded). Other examples of active learning techniques include role-playing, case studies, group projects, think-pair-share, peer teaching, debates, Just-in-Time Teaching, and short demonstrations followed by class discussion.

What are the techniques of active learning?

This post provides five active learning techniques: just-in-time teaching, listening teams, structured sharing, students as teachers, and team quizzes. Active learning is a very popular topic in educational literature, and we encourage it as a means to improve teaching and learning in the classroom.

Active Learning Techniques

Learn about what active learning is and how to achieve it. This post provides five active learning techniques: just-in-time teaching, listening teams, structured sharing, students as teachers, and team quizzes.

Active learning is a very popular topic in educational literature, and we encourage it as a means to improve teaching and learning in the classroom. Be sure to review the rich collection of Active Learning Resources on CTL’s Web Site.

Below you’ll find a brief definition of active learning and detailed instructions for five sample techniques for increasing active learning (taken from our long list of potential active learning activities).

Active Learning

Active learning requires deeper planning than simply leading students through a classroom behavior. Marchese (1998) says “Active learning has the ring of a slogan; passive learning is an oxymoron.” All learning is active in the sense of changing long-term memory. Focusing on behavior without cognition ignores “both the structures that constitute human cognitive architecture and evidence from empirical studies over the past half-century” (Kirschner, Sweller & Clark, 2006). Proponents of active learning do no favors by offering this definition: “Active learning is, in short, any learning activity engaged in by students in a classroom other than listening passively to an instructor’s lecture” (Faust & Paulson, 1998). It implies the desired activity is observable, while all of us have experience learning by being actively engaged in lectures, though our outward appearance might appear passive. It is often the learner who decides their level of learning activity, through thoughtful consideration or note-taking. Mayer (2004) emphasizes that “learning may be best supported by methods of instruction that involve cognitive activity rather than behavioral activity.” The key to active learning is the learning activity taking place within the student’s brain rather than the observed behavior that is a means to that cognitive work. The animated figure on this page illustrates that the teacher guides students in active learning, triggering those cognitive events consistent with desired learning outcomes. Be sure that your classroom activities have a clearly defined objective and effectively guide the student toward that learning goal.

Just-in-time Teaching

One way to describe Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT), is to say that it lets the students’ questions, misconceptions, and/or knowledge gaps guide classroom instruction. With JiTT, students complete an assignment or assessment on a given topic before the class period. Shortly before the class, the instructor reviews students’ work and adapts the activities and discussions based on the common errors or misunderstandings in the students’ answers. The teacher may use a Web-based assessment package or course management system (such as Blackboard) to facilitate making the assignments and collecting students’ answers.

A variation of JiTT uses in-class response systems (such as i-Clicker) to pose questions to students during the classroom session. The teacher may ask questions prior to discussion to expose existing misconceptions, or ask questions after the discussion to assess understanding. In each case, the subsequent discussion addresses the students’ misunderstandings.

Interactive Example

This is an example of monitoring student comprehension while lecturing, particularly for a very large class. The professor can observe student readiness, which they indicate by pressing A, B, or C. Press these buttons on the iClicker image to see how the bars change whenever the students signal their comprehension.

Listening Teams

Listening Teams keep students focused during lecture modules or video presentations. They also provide opportunities for questioning and group discussion of key course concepts. Here’s how to set up listening teams:

Create groups of four students. Each student will take on one of the roles. You can mix up roles within classes or between classes to keep students engaged.

1. Student 1, Example Giver (Facilitator/Tutor): Gives examples or applications of key concepts.
2. Student 2, Questioner (Inquisitive Student): Asks 2 clarifying questions about the material.
3. Student 3, Devil’s Advocate (Critical Thinker): Identifies 2 areas of disagreement within the content and explains why.
4. Student 4, Team Player (Positive Believer): Points out two areas of agreement with lecture content and explains why.

Once you have the teams set up, give them their assignment:

1. While listening to the lecture or video, think of examples, questions, and areas of disagreement and agreement.
2. After the presentation, meet as a group for 5-10 minutes to share ideas and finalize your contributions.
3. Groups will share examples and ask clarifying questions of the professor or other groups to solidify their understanding of the key concepts.

Source: Mel Silberman, 1996. Active Learning: 101 Strategies to Teach Any Subject. Allyn & Bacon.

Interactive Example

These students have just finished listening to a lecture which included the following ideas:

Selective perception is a powerful concept in psychology and has many applications in social life. It is defined as seeing what we expect to see or seeing what we want to see. When something we observe is complex or multifaceted we can only interpret that information through our preconceptions about the world. These preconceptions then influence our perceptions and interpretations of reality.

Vallone et al. observed the power of preconceptions in what they called the Hostile Media Effect. When Israelis and Palestinians watched the same news broadcast, 90% of each group perceived that the news story was biased against their side. How could that be?

Hover your mouse across the picture to reveal the roles they are playing. Click on a role to hear their “Listening Team” comments.

Structured Sharing

Structured Sharing is a technique that helps students review the content of the class/presentation from different points of view, and at the same time helps you assess whether the students are learning the intended information and discover what questions they may still have.

Any number of students can participate, but the best size is between 20–30. Each student will need three 3″ x 5″ cards, and you’ll need about 10 more for your own ideas.

A Structured Sharing activity takes about 15-20 minutes. You can easily expand or contract the activity to fill the available time.

Before class, identify a superlative you would like focus on. During the activity, the students will respond with their ideas about the superlative you choose. Ideas for superlatives include:

• What are the most important points from the day’s lesson and/or readings?
• What are the most useful ideas?
• Which are the most relevant to our times?

Here are a few more ideas for superlatives:

• Most confusing
• Most amusing
• Most controversial
• Most unusual
• Most difficult
• Most credible
• Most surprising
• Most trivial

Write your own answers for the superlatives on 3-10 cards (one idea per card).

At the beginning of class, pass out three blank 3″ x 5″ cards to each student. Tell them that by the end of class today they are to write down the three most __________ (fill in the blank with what you have chosen) on each card. You can limit it to the class activity/lecture or include readings as well. At the end of class, collect the cards and add your cards to the pile.

Before the next class, review the students’ answer cards. This will give you a chance to assess the students’ learning. How closely did the students’ responses match yours? Are you satisfied with their responses? Did they achieve the learning outcomes you planned? Can you see places where you need to clarify or expand concepts?

The next step is to show the students your responses and those of their peers. At the beginning of the next class period, give each student three or four of the cards (including yours) until they have all been distributed. Ask each student to select the card they most agree with or have them divide into groups of two to four and pool their cards and select one to share with the class. Give each student or representative from a group an opportunity to share the response they selected and, if time permits, the reason they picked the one they did.

Variations: If the room has desk or counter-top space, spread the cards after you collect them (and add yours to the stack). Ask students to come up and review the cards, selecting the one or two they most agree with. Then allow them to share their card/s with the class. You can do this at the end of the first class period or the beginning of the next. This lets students to see what others were thinking and can help frame their learning as well.

Interactive Example

Here are some “structured sharing” cards that students created after reading the following talks by Boyd K. Packer:

• “The Word of Wisdom: The Principle and the Promises,” Ensign, May 1996
• “Ye Are the Temple of God,” Ensign, November 2000

Click on each category group to flip through their notes.

Students as the Teachers

In this type of active learning experience, the students prepare an actual lesson on a given topic. The student’s lesson can range from a 10 minutes in a small group to a 30-minute activity presented to the whole class.

Don’t confuse this with a simple student presentation; the students must give an actual lesson that includes lesson objectives or learning outcomes, discussion questions, a form of practice and a form of evaluation. Their “class” is encouraged to ask questions and discuss points that the student presents.

Keys to Success

• Create a basic lesson outline for students to follow.
• Explain basic teaching skills to the students.
• Define how you will evaluate the students’ performance on this task. For example:
• You may evaluate based on their adherence to the lesson outline.
• You may use their peers’ understanding of the topic to evaluate their performance.
• Have clear-cut topics for the students to teach.
• Give examples of reliable resources for students to use in lesson preparation.
• Allow the students’ creativity to take over.
• You may assign pairs of students to team teach.

The Online Twist

This is also an activity that you can use in an online environment.

Keys to Success in an Online Environment

• Have the students teach their topic to a group of their peers outside of class.
• Require students to turn in their lesson outline.
• Provide teacher evaluation sheets for the student to give to their peers.
• Have students submit completed evaluation sheets with lesson outline.
• Evaluation sheets can include the following:
• Likert scales asking the peers to rate—
• Student’s ability to cover topic.
• Student’s preparedness.
• Student’s presentation method.
• Effectiveness of student’s evaluation methods.
• Short questions regarding—
• Strong points of the lesson.
• Points that needed improvement.
• Specific aspect that they learned from the lesson.

Remember that all in-class “Keys to Success” also apply to the online students. Having the student become the teacher is in excellent way for students to become active in their own education. By preparing their own lesson, students are required to have a solid understanding of their topic and develop deeper insights, and they will gain ownership of their selected topic. This approach will allow for better classroom interaction then traditional methods of teaching.

Team Quizzes

Using team quizzes to help students review is a highly interactive exam-preparation strategy that requires careful—but well-rewarded—preparation from both the teacher and the students.

Here’s how it works during a class session:

1. The class is divided into three teams.
2. Team A creates a short-answer quiz while Teams B and C review their notes.
3. Team A quizzes Team B.
4. If Team B misses a question, Team C gets a chance to answer the question.
5. The next question goes first to Team C, and missed questions revert to Team B.

Step-by-Step Instructions for Teachers

Here’s where the preparation comes in.

1. Create a comprehensive outline of material covered in class/assignments. (Students may assist in this effort.)
2. Give each student a copy of the outline.
3. At the start of class, give a detailed explanation of the “Team Quizzes” procedure.
4. Divide the students into three groups.
5. Assign one team the responsibility of creating a specific number of questions guided by the outline and derived from the course materials.*
6. Assign the remaining two teams the responsibility of collectively studying the outline and materials.
7. Allocate an appropriate amount of time for group study/question synthesis.
8. With the class still clearly and physically divided into three groups, stage a contest wherein the first group presents the questions they have created to the other two groups.
9. Select questions from among those the students created to include in the actual test. This intrinsically rewards attendance, class participation, and attentiveness.

Optional: Award the first team with extra credit according to the quality of questions they create, and also award the winning group with extra credit. This can motivate the groups to study effectively and come up with potent questions.

If you repeat the activity for future tests, ensure that a different set of students gets the opportunity to create the questions.

Active learning instructional strategies include a wide range of activities that share the common element of ―involving students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing‖ (Bonwell & Eison 1991). Active learning instructional strategies can be created and used to engage students in (a) thinking.