The last two sessions of the New and Visiting Faculty Learning Community have focused on active learning strategies. One definition from Boston University describes active learning as “instructional strategies that promote students’ active participation in constructing knowledge. Strategies are often hands-on activities, brief writing and discussion assignments, problem solving tasks, information gathering and synthesis, question generation, and reflection-based activities, among others.” 

Here are a few notable things I learned while preparing for sharing about active learning strategies: 

• Student Motivation. Bowen & Watson (2017) explain why we, as faculty who love the learning process, don’t often feel the same kind of engagement from students that we felt as students. As faculty, we choose to be in this learning environment and are excited about it! Utilizing active learning strategies helps motivate and engage students who may not necessarily consider themselves “good” students or may be questioning being in college. 
• Mistakes to Avoid. Felder & Brent (2016) have shared six common mistakes often made when incorporating active learning into our pedagogy. Check out the Stanford Tomorrow Professor’s blog about these mistakes and how to avoid them. There are several other articles about active learning on this same blogsite.
• Preparing Students for Active Learning. It’s unproductive to suddenly incorporate an active learning strategy into our class sessions out of the blue and expect a great reception from students. According to Bean (2011), for students to engage and feel comfortable with an active learning strategy (which usually means asking for more active participation on their part) they need to be prepped and informed about what is happening and why, so they are prepared to engage and will feel comfortable doing so. This means we need to let students know what we’re up to.
• Worth the Effort. To incorporate active learning well takes more prep time and more class time than we may be used to; yet it’s worth the effort — data in many studies has shown that engaging students in active learning strategies provides ways for students to make deeper connections and think more critically about the content. 
• Assessment and Reflection. Formative assessment of students and your own reflection after introducing an active learning strategy are keys to making it work, and to work better when used repeatedly. See these past Teaching Tips blogs for more ideas about assessment and reflection.

This document, containing hundreds of ideas for different types of active learning strategies was shared with our learning community by  Principia Educational Studies professor Carol Burbee. She describes active learning as “making students’ thinking visible.” There will be more from Carol on this topic posted soon. 

One final note: active learning strategies engage students in the act of learning. It’s worth a try since that is what we are all about! I encourage you to share your experiences with active learning in the comments section below.

Bean, J.C. (2011). Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom. (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass.

Bowen, J. A., & Watson, E. C. (2017). Teaching Naked Techniques: A Practical Guide to Designing Better Classes (1st ed.). Jossey-Bass.

Felder, R. M., & Brent, R. (2016). Active learning. In Teaching and Learning STEM: A Practical Guide (p. 95). Jossey-Bass.