Active and Engaged Learning

Beginning Activities

• Freewriting. Begin with freewriting for simply 2-3 minutes (time it). Freewrite along with your students. Keep the room silent. Listen to the silence. Stop the clock, stretch, and smile. You’ve just refocused everyone’s mind, brought them to attend to what comes next.
• Guided Writing. Ask students to write for 2-3 minutes in response to an analytical question asking students to synthesize, make a connection, or interpret an idea. The goal is to push knowledge gained from reading or lectures to fuller understanding. After writing, have students share in pairs and then ask a few individuals to report on their partners’ responses.
• Sample questions:
  •  
    • What are the pros and cons to X?
    • What is the idea that we have discussed during this unit that you can imagine trying to explain to a parent or grandparent? Begin that explanation now, right in your notes.
    • What is the main argument that the author we read last night was making?
• Focused Summaries. Have students write a paragraph about an assigned reading, with specific directions; i.e., summarize the argument and identify three supporting examples.
• Annotations. Have students write out key ideas of assigned reading and make notes that briefly evaluate the strengths & weaknesses of an author’s argument or research.

Concluding Activities

• Teach others. At the conclusion of a unit, have students write out for an absent classmate the major themes, discoveries, and questions of the unit.
• What did I learn? Have students write a focused quick detailing to themselves what they have learned, with the expectation of identifying a specific number of independent points.
• Identifying the conflicts. Have students review the major issues or authors discussed during this class/unit, and identify conflicting opinions, stating the opinion of the side.
• Minute paper. Have students write a summary of the key points they learned during class or things they have questions about (“muddiest point”).

A note on your role. Assigning more writing does not mean instructors should be reading all this writing. This is writing for students to learn, not for evaluation. Make sure students are writing by walking around the room and observing, cajoling, scolding, and praising. But don’t collect it.

What is the Value of Using Writing in Class?

Writing improves cognitive processing

“Language provides us with a unique way of knowing and becomes a tool for discovering, for shaping meaning, and for reaching understanding”. (James Britton)

A few research findings:

• Writing to read: writing about material improves reading comprehension, reading fluency, and word reading .(Graham & Hebert 2011)
• 1st year Bio: Journal writing on processes and problems as a supplement to lab reports increased scores on multiple-choice exams. (McCrindle & Christensen 1995)
• Gen Ed Bio students: writing about experiments increased critical thinking skills of analysis and inference. (Quitadamo and Kurtz 2007)
• Learners move from knowledge telling to knowledge transformation through increasing the complexity of writing tasks. (Bereiter and Scardamalia 1987)

Think of a class as the time to apply, extend, and complicate what has been learned.

• Apply what has been learned– individually or in groups. Develop two examples of a concept discussed in reading or homework: call on some students to report, offering corrections to teach all how the examples are and are not successful.
• Think/pair/share on a controversial or challenging question. Give students a set time to think, then discuss their response with a partner, and then have some share back to the full class, making connections with other pairs’ responses.
• Debate prep. Prepare 5-6 points for one side of a debatable question, with different students assigned different sides.
• Case studies. Present new case studies for students to analyze or problem-solve.
• Worksheet. Design a worksheet that allows students to work through, practice, or apply key concepts (individually or in groups).

Louis Deslauriers, director of Science Teaching and Learning in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, cautions that active learning is not simply engagement, but productive engagement toward a perceived worthwhile goal. Instructors can engage students even during lectures and direct instruction by pausing and giving students time to think about the following questions:

• Does this make sense to me?
• How is this relevant?
• Does it connect with something I already know? And if so, how do I integrate with what I already know?
• What sort of questions do I have right now?
• Can I repeat what the instructor just did? Or is it going to require a lot of practice? (Ofgang)

One of the best things students can do is reflect on their learning – to see for themselves what it is they know and do not know. Strong learners do this all the time, reflectively, but less experienced learners need guidance in developing their learning muscles. Here are some reflective assignments you can do in class or as homework.

Problem-solving Log. Students record their steps or thinking in solving a problem or completing an assessment. You can require regular logs (or drafts) with progress reports and steps taken to complete the task. Have students identify challenges, gaps, the knowledge they already had, or new knowledge learned.

Exam wrappers. Add a metacognitive question to your exam to promote metacognitive thinking about the process of exam preparation. Direct students to report and reflect on how they prepared for an assessment and what they imagine doing differently next time. After the exam, or when you meet again next, conduct a short discussion asking students to share their reflections with classmates to support improvement in exam preparation activities. (Ambrose et al., 2010). For an example you can import and adapt for your course, log into Canvas, click on “Commons” (far left navigation) and search “Quiz and Exam Wrapper Survey.”

Short quizzes that test for understanding. A five-minute quiz once a week, perhaps even a one-question quiz, shows students immediately what their level of understanding is. Typically with a low point value, short quizzes should be followed by a brief discussion of questions missed and an investigation of what led to these gaps.

Exit tickets. Exit tickets allow you to quickly gauge student understanding and demonstrate that you value student success. Use index cards, post-it notes, online quizzes, or polls that students complete near the end of class. Prompts include: what is the most important thing you learned today? What more do you need to learn (to meet the objective)? What are you still confused about?

Muddiest point. This technique consists of asking students to jot down a quick response to one question: “What was the muddiest point in [the lecture, discussion, homework assignment, film, etc.]?” The term “muddiest” means “most unclear” or “most confusing.” (Angelo et al., 1993) and essentially helps students discover and zero in on the questions they need to address to conquer a lesson.

Minute papers. These provide an assessment of what students learned in a class and help students inscribe learning into long-term memory. Minute papers are easy to do: ask students to write for two minutes on the following questions: “What was the most important thing you learned during this class?” and “What important question remains unanswered?” Collect these papers as students leave for your learning, returning them to students the next class session. Notes or evaluations or not necessary, though it may be useful to make general comments about what you observed students’ understanding.

• Think-Pair-Share
  • Break down textbook quotations; respond to questions
• Group Work
  • Find a solution to a problem
  • Summarize another student’s answer
  • Answer as a group
• Edit Together
  • Syllabus, assignment, and/or course rubrics
• Visual Representation
  • Concept maps, flow charts, etc.
• Roundtable Discussion
  • Written discussion for quieter classes
• Socratic Seminar
• Debates or Games

Google Drive: collaborative folders, files, docs, sheets, slides

• Have course/module notes as Google doc linked through Canvas
• Have students create their own folders, Google Meet for collaborative sessions, working docs, etc.

Perusall: social annotation platform

• Assign students to read texts collaboratively, annotating in groups or as a full class

Padlet: live discussion and brainstorming

• Pose a question that asks for a definition, an opinion, what is already known, existing questions that are contestable, etc.

Kahoot: Create games and trivia for study sessions

Zoom Tools

Break-out rooms

• Have specific activity/assignment–use the TILT model: purpose, task, criteria
• Clarify timing for them ahead of time
• Clarify instructor involvement–will you check in to each room, come in when asked, or monitor using Google docs
• Creating groups: students can choose their rooms or they meet in regular groups

Share screen

• Presentations, sharing videos, and audio
• Collaborative writing w/ Google or Perusall

Polling

• Warm-ups, temperature check, quick quiz (multiple choice only in Zoom)

Chat

• Do nows/exit slips for everyone to post responses in Chat
• Use of chat for quieter students

What Not to Do

• Show slides/ lecturing/ staying behind the podium for the entire class
• Summarize homework content for course lectures
• Show a video that runs uninterrupted for a long duration
• Answer your own questions. Wait after you ask a question, even if it feels uncomfortable.
• Turn your back to students or avoid eye contact
• Look at a computer or other device more than occasionally
• Offering active learning opportunities that are (or are perceived as) disconnected from learning outcomes and seem like busywork
• Assume that active learning will just happen when you present an active learning assignment – active learning takes instructors who coach, cajole, pester, and are active themselves.

In their influential work Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom, Bonwell and Eison defined strategies that promote active learning as “instructional activities involving students in doing things and thinking about what they are doing” (Bonwell and Eison, 1991). Approaches that promote active learning focus more on developing students’ skills than on transmitting information and require that students do something—read, discuss, write—that involves higher-order thinking. They also tend to place some emphasis on students’ explorations of their own attitudes and values.

This definition is broad, and Bonwell and Eison explicitly recognize that a range of activities can fall within it. They suggest 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). 

The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE) provide a very simple 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, then, 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.

Adapted under a Creative Commons 4.0 license from: Brame, C. (2016). Active learning. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved 22 Feb. 2023 from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/active-learning/.

The evidence that active learning approaches help students learn more effectively than transmissionist approaches in which instructors rely on “teaching by telling” is robust and stretches back more than thirty years (see, for example, Bonwell and Eison, 1991). Freeman and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis of 225 studies comparing “constructivist versus exposition-centered course designs” in STEM disciplines (Freeman et al., 2014). They included 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 (odds ratio of 1.95, Z = 10.4, P<<0.001). Further, they found that on average, student performance on exams, concept inventories, or other assessments increased by about half a standard deviation when some active learning was included in course design (weighted standardized mean difference of 0.47, Z = 9.781, P<<0.001). These results were consistent across disciplines: they observed no significant difference in the effects of active learning in biology, chemistry, computer science, engineering, geology, math, physics, and psychology courses. 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.”

Adapted under a Creative Commons 4.0 license from: Brame, C. (2016). Active learning. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved 22 Feb. 2023 from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/active-learning/.

Dr. Livia Alexander (Art and Design) has put together a library of resources and tools to be used by all faculty who are interested to learn more about game-based learning.

Database: Board Games Templates and Resources

Database: Books and Articles

Database: Online Resources

Database: Video Games as Pedagogical Resources

Inside Active Learning classrooms, University of Minneapolis, (2010)

Examples of Active Learning, Boston University, (2015)

Teaching and Learning Experiences in Active Learning Classrooms, McGill University (2011)

Getting started with active learning techniques. Cornell University Center for Teaching Innovation.

Writing Discussion Forum Questions (2022). Wiley University Services. https://ctl.wiley.com/writing-discussion-forum-questions/

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.

Brookfield, S., &; Preskill, S. (2016). The discussion book: fifty great ways to get people talking. John Wiley & Sons. https://public.ebookcentral.proquest.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=4306433.

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.

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.

Graham, Steve; Michael Hebert. (2011, December). Writing to Read: A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Writing and Writing Instruction on Reading. Harvard Educational Review, 81(4): 710–744. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.4.t2k0m13756113566

McCrindle, A. R., & Christensen, C. A. (1995). The impact of learning journals on metacognitive and cognitive processes and learning performance. Learning and Instruction, 5(2), 167–185. https://doi.org/10.1016/0959-4752(95)00010-Z

Quitadamo, I. J., and Kurtz, M. J. (2007). “Learning to Improve: Using Writing to Increase Critical Thinking Performance in General Education Biology.” CBE—Life Sciences Education, 6(2): 140-154.