ACTIVE PEDAGOGY This Is What You're In For! Good-bye to teaching, Hello to learning! creating learning environments -involving students Involving does.

ACTIVE PEDAGOGYThis Is What You're In

For! 

Good-bye to teaching,  Hello to learning! 

creating learning environments -involving students Involving does not necessarily mean that all learning

occurs via action and busyness; involving means connecting students to the subject matter they learn

about. Activities are simply means to help the connecting

process more effectively.

TEACHING STRATEGIES

*what the students will do in order to learn the

course content /skills and practice the goals

How People Learn

• Research shows clearly that a person must be engaged to learn. People learn by actively participating in observing, speaking, writing, listening, thinking, drawing, and doing.

• Learning is enhanced when a person sees potential implications, applications, and benefits to others.

• Learning builds on current understanding (including misconceptions!)

Learning Styles*individual preference for receiving and processing information. How does this

influence teaching• Your learning styles will certainly not match those of

everyone in your class, and your learning styles may, in fact, be quite different even from a majority of your students.

• What works well for you may not work well for some (or even most!!) of your students. Because each of us knows what works for ourselves, we're prone to selecting teaching strategies that favor our own learning styles. If you choose only teaching strategies that would optimize learning for students with your learning styles, many of the students in your class may be at a disadvantage.

• Knowing something about learning styles in general and your own learning styles in particular can help you to plan assignments and activities that reach students with as many different learning styles as possible.

Goal: Get students engaged in learning -

Thinking, talking, moving, or emotionally involved so that

what you teach gets into long-term memory.

In other words, so they will go from this

The secret to being a bore is to tell everything. Voltaire

Active learningto the rescue!

Fundamentals

1. Learning is an active process.2. Different people learn in different ways.3. We often don’t know what we think until we

try to say it or write it.4. Just because you’ve said it doesn’t mean

they’ve learned it.

What is active learning? Active Learning is a multi-directional learning

experience in which learning occurs teacher-to-student, student-to-teacher, and student-to-student.

Active Learning involves activity-based learning experiences: input, process, and output. These activity-based experiences

take many shapes whole class involvement, teams, small groups, trios, pairs, individuals.

Activity-based experiences take many forms talking, writing, reading, discussing, debating, acting, role-playing,

journaling, conferring, interviewing, building, creating, and the list continues.

Why use active learning?• "Active Learning is not merely a set of activities, but rather an

attitude on the part of both students and faculty that makes learning effective The objective of Active Learning is to stimulate lifetime habits of thinking to stimulate students to think about HOW as well as WHAT they are learning and to increasingly take responsibility for their own education.“– (Seven principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education)

• Mel Silberman explains that learning comes "in waves" through repeated exposures of different kinds involving multiple senses. "When learning is active, the learner is seeking something an answer to a question, information to solve a problem, or a way to do a job."

How does active learning work?

Active Learning involves input from multiple sources through multiple senses (hearing, seeing, feeling, etc.).

-Input-

Active Learning involves process, interacting with other people and materials, accessing related schemata in the brain,

stimulating multiple areas of the brain to act.-Process-

Active Learning involves output, requiring students to produce a response or a solution or some evidence of the interActive

Learning that is taking place. -Output-

Think-Pair-Share

Students are given a question or situation to resolve. Pupils are given five minutes to answer the question (think). Next, students are given another five minutes to discuss the problem with a classmate (pair). Lastly, the teacher asks the student pairs to discuss their resolution with the class (share).

Student Debates

Students are typically given an issue that they must research and be able to support their view on the issue as well as argue the opposite view, critically. Students gain knowledge in how to research as well as how to present an argument, argue critically and oppose an argument based on research instead of opinion.

Role Playing

• The adopting or performing the role of another significant individual in order to gain insight into the behavior of that person.

KWL

To begin a new study or theme, teachers ask children, “What do you already know, what do you wonder about, and what do you want to learn?” Use of this strategy tells children that their prior knowledge and interests are valued.

How many ways can you do this?

• Teachers pose this question or organize an activity with this as the opener in various situations. For example, how many ways can you create shapes on a geoboard? Or how many ways can you sort bottle caps? As soon as you ask children to come up with many different ways to use a material, answer a question, or end a story, their desire to make choices and be inventive comes into play and leads to engagement.

Dramatic touch

• Teachers can use drama and humor to enhance child interest. For example, to encourage children to use other words for said in their writing, a teacher darkened the room, lit a flashlight, and attached a card with the word said written on it to a make-believe tombstone. Then the class brainstormed other words they could use.

See what you can find out

• The primary purpose of this approach is to introduce children to a new topic, material, book, or tool. It is used to encourage children to further explore a valuable resource tool.

Quick games

• Twenty Questions, I’m Thinking of a Number, and other games that capture children’s interest can be applied to different subject areas and often work especially well to keep children engaged during transition times.

Service learning Instructional projects that link community service and academic study

• The basic theory of service-learning is that theinteraction of knowledge and skills with experience strengthens learning, and contributes to the community in meaningful ways.

Analysis or reactions to videos

• Videos offer an alternative presentation mode for lesson material. Videos should be relatively short (5-20 minutes). Screen them to make sure they are worth showing. Prepare students ahead of time with reaction or discussion questions or a list of ideas on which to focus; this will help them pay attention. After the video, have them work alone or in pairs to answer critical questions, write a “review” or reaction, or apply a theory.

Mini-research proposals or projects; a class research symposium

• Have the students work on designing a research study on a topic from the class. In some situations, you may be able to have them collect data during class time (observe some situation or give out some short surveys) or you may have them doing this as part of an outside-of-class project. Either way, have students present their research in a class research symposium similar to what we do at professional meetings. Invite other faculty and students.

Analyze case studies

• Bring in case studies for students to read (for example, I will put a case example of sexual harassment on an overhead). Have students discuss and analyze the case, applying concepts, data, and theory from the class. They can work as individuals or in groups or do this as a think-pair-share. Consider combining this with a brief in-class writing assignment.

Student debates

• These can be formal or informal, individual or group, graded or not, etc. They allow students the opportunity to take a thesis or position and gather data and logic to support that view, critically. Debates also give students experience with verbal presentations. Some faculty members ask students their personal view on an issue and then make them argue the opposite position.

Write and produce a newsletter

• Have small groups of students produce a brief newsletter on a specific topic related to class. Students should include articles with relevant research, post information on upcoming related public events, and so on. Share these with faculty and students in related courses or in the major.

Keeping journals or logs

• Have students make journal or log entries periodically (on paper or computer, in or outside of class). Require a brief critical reflection or analysis of each entry as well.

Concept mapping

• Here students create visual representations of models, ideas, and the relationships between concepts. They draw circles containing concepts and lines, with connecting phrases on the lines, between concepts. These can be done individually or in groups, once or repeated as students acquire new information and perspectives, and can be shared, discussed, and critiqued.

Turned On, Tuned In Cognitive processing: build knowledge,

comprehension

• Overview: At the beginning of a new topic of study, students groups list facts or concepts they know about the upcoming topic. During the opening lecture on the topic, students listen for facts/concepts they listed. When the teacher addresses an item on a group's list, group members raise their hands and receive points for their team.

Learning Pairs Cognitive processing: may involve

comprehension, application, or problem solving

• Overview: Learning pairs may be employed at the beginning, middle, or end of class. Assignments for learning pairs range in complexity from comprehension to problem solving, but the three demonstrations on this site involve comprehension level cognitive processing. Though the input and output vary for each situation, the process involves students pairing with a person sitting next to them and discussing the content suggested by the teacher.

Strategy title: TV CommercialCognitive processing: integrate, apply, review

concepts

• Overview: Student groups create a 30-second TV commercial that illustrates concepts previously covered in class. It is suggested to use this strategy with students who already know one another as a team building exercise.

Team Choice - "Billboard Ranking" strategy Cognitive processing: problem solving,

synthesis

• Overview: Student groups apply concepts or procedures learned earlier in class to solve a new kind of problem that involves making a choice of better/best among the options that are available.

Enjoy the school year. Be an Active Teacher!