Active Learning

Active Learning Within the Lecture

Initially, findings on the value of active versus passive learning spurred scholars to discredit the lecture as a teaching method. However, faculty can easily incorporate active learning in the lecture. Instructors may decide to limit a lecture to 12–20 minutes and then pause to lead a student lecture-break activity of 2–15 minutes. The activity can be as simple as having students pair up to compare and fill in their lecture notes. Or it may be a more challenging pair or small-group exercise, such as solving a problem, debriefing a short case, completing a think-pair-share activity (students share their responses to a question in pairs), reaching consensus on an open-ended or controversial issue, conceiving new examples of a concept, or answering a multiple-choice item (once before and again after discussing the answer with one or two other students).

Another approach to injecting active learning into the lecture is to teach and require thoughtful, handwritten note-taking. This mental activity demands that students focus on the lecture, think about its meaning, and jot down the most important content using the least amount of ink.

Activity-Based Active Learning

Active learning comprises these activity-based teaching methods as well:

• Group work in all its forms: cooperative, collaborative, and team-based learning
• Recitation, where students answer free recall and comprehension questions, and discussion, where they exchange responses to higher order thinking questions
• Informal (ungraded) writing exercises to clarify thinking, reinforce learning, or start on a formal, graded assignment
• Classroom assessment techniques: Ungraded writing assignments and activities designed to reinforce learning and reveal how well students have mastered new material—for example, the minute paper (a response to a reflective probe asking for the most important or useful or surprising idea), the muddiest (least understood) point, the knowledge probe (a short survey of students’ prior knowledge on an upcoming topic), and application cards (students write down at least one real-world application of new knowledge as an assessment of their understanding)
• Science laboratories, where student pairs or small groups conduct and interpret an experiment or solve a problem using scientific methods and data
• Problem-solving activities and assignments: mathematical problem-solving; undergraduate research projects; the case method (students apply their learning to resolve a provocative or problematic situation presented in a narrative or story); problem-based learning, which necessitates outside research; and inquiry-based/inquiry-guided learning, where students typically practice inductive thinking
• Experiential learning formats, whether real life or simulated: role-plays, simulations, service learning, civic engagement, internships, fieldwork, and clinicals (hospital and clinic rounds led by an instructor posing questions)
• Activities where students move around, such as the gallery walk, where student groups present their ideas on a large sheet of paper displayed on the wall and the class circulates to examine all of the ideas; fish bowl, where several students discuss alternative perspectives while the rest of the class observes and takes notes; idea line up, where the instructor asks a question that has a continuum of responses and students position themselves on a line to indicate their level of agreement with one of the anchor responses, allowing the instructor to create heterogeneous discussion groups; and four corners, where the instructor asks students to choose from among several responses to a question by going to the corner of the classroom that represents each response and discussing their evidence for choosing that corner versus other corners

Internal Active Learning

[Page 77]All the teaching methods discussed previously involve students actually doing something, whether writing, speaking, or acting. However, some less obvious forms of active learning take place internally—that is, within the student’s mind. For instance, taking a quiz or test constitutes active learning, not just because students may write an answer to a question but because being tested triggers learning—and does so much more effectively than simply rereading or reviewing material, even many times. Test taking requires free-recall and on-the-spot thinking that entails more effortful cognitive processing and retrieval practice than simply reading the material.

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