Active Learning

What is active learning?

Active learning is based on constructivism, a learning theory that asserts that learners construct their own understanding of a topic by building upon their prior knowledge. Implementing active learning therefore means shifting the focus of instruction away from knowledge transmission to learners' knowledge construction through the creation of guided tasks, interactions, assignments, and environments that cultivate deep, meaningful learning. A closely related theory—social constructivism—holds that active learning best takes place when the construction of knowledge occurs in collaboration with others.

So what counts as active learning? According to Bonwell and Eison (1991), active learning is "anything that involves students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing" (p. 2), and Felder and Brent (2009) define active learning as "anything course-related that all students in a class session are called upon to do other than simply watching, listening, and taking notes" (p. 2).

Active learning is related to other instructional methods that closely involve students in the knowledge construction process, including:

• Student-centred learning, where the diverse learning needs of students, rather than the need to push through content, are at the centre of the learning process.
• Problem-based learning, where students are given a problem or scenario that requires students to formulate questions, analyze evidence, connect evidence to pre-existing theories, derive conclusions, and reflect on their learning.
• Experiential learning, where students learn by engaging in authentic learning activities, that is, ones that replicate situations or problems they might encounter in real life or in a work situation.

Active learning fosters understanding rather than memorization of facts; it encourages students to apply learning to different problems and contexts; it gives students more autonomy over their learning; and it helps students learn how to learn.

The text above is derived from Active Learning Activities. Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo.

What do we want?

In the strategic plan of the Faculty of Arts 2021-2026 the following goal is formulated (p11-p13):

“We will provide activating teaching in a learning environment where on-campus teaching is the guiding principle, and IT plays an important supporting role. Students will be challenged to actively put what they learn into practice, in discussions with lecturers and other students, and by working together to solve problems relating to the teaching material. Traditional lectures will be partly replaced or supplemented with a combination of face-to-face and online teaching activities to create room for activating teaching methods: blended learning will become the norm.

[..]

We will offer courses in active learning to enable lecturers, preferably in teams, to redesign their current course units according to the principles of activating teaching. They will master the modes of instruction that support active learning and learn about the IT resources that can be used.”

Why?

In contrast to traditional lecturing in which students passively receive information by listening, active learning leads to more student engagement and therefore, in general, leads to higher performance. Please watch this short video about how and why active learning works.

Examples of Active Learning

Active Learning can be as simple as asking your students to think about what you just told them and to raise a hand if anything was unclear. On the other side of the spectrum are site visits where students apply theories and concepts discussed in class. We have added various sites with examples of active learning below.

This image above is taken from the University of Michigan, Introduction to Active Learning. For a concrete list of possible activities, see How can you incorporate active learning into your classroom (pdf).

University of Waterloo, Active Learning Activities. In addition to the background information on Active Learning that we used above, the site also describes a number of possible activities.

MIT OpenCourseWare, YouTube playlist. This YouTube playlist featuring Janet Rankin contains of 12 short various on Active Learning, e.g on activities like Think-Pair-Share and Jigsaw..

Faculty of Arts

For many lecturers at the Faculty of Arts, Active Learning is not a new approach. In the coming months, concrete examples from the faculty will be shown here, and new examples will be added in the course of the project.

Flipped Classroom

From lectures to flipped classroom Q&A sessions by Maarten Duijvendak and Jan Willem Drijvers

Perusall

Perusall: every student prepared for every class (Pablo Valdivia, video)

Miro

Online collaboration using Miro by Dana Mustata

Active learning spaces

Active learning spaces (CLIQ webinar)