Learning Is Not a Spectator Sport
Student learning is less effective when students sit inertly in classes barely listening to teachers, passively viewing PowerPoint presentations, memorizing pre-packaged assignments, and spitting out answers. Learning is not a spectator sport. Student learning is optimized when students are actively involved in their own learning. Students must talk about what they are learning, write about it, relate it to past experience, and apply it in their own lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves.
—–[Adapted from Chickering and Gamson, Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education]
As faculty and instructors look ahead to their winter semester courses, they may be considering these kinds of questions: How can I create an environment that optimizes learning? What kinds of activities/assignments encourage “deep learning”?
Research points to the use of writing assignments, frequent feedback, team projects, and the use of small-group activities, even in lecture settings, as ways to foster student involvement through active learning. For example, a professor invites students to turn to a partner to compare and contrast the two theories under consideration. In another activity, student pairs analyze a poem or a math problem and then report their conclusions.
Current research indicates these strategies enhance learning. Students are taking responsibility for their own learning, and they are teaching and learning from each other. Besides enhancing learning, these kinds of activities are usually more enjoyable to students; and students learn concepts better and retain them longer if they have been actively engaged in classroom activities. Adoption of these kinds of strategies is taking hold at BYU, too. For example, based on BYU’s participation in the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE 2003), BYU moved into the 90th percentile nationally for student engagement in “active and collaborative learning” (in comparison with other “doctoral-extensive” institutions). Current NSSE data shows that other colleges and universities across the country are now following suit.
What are some of these “active and collaborative” engagements students are participating in? Here’s a “baker’s dozen” list of possibilities.
- Field trips and library or other campus tours
- Short quizzes or surveys for immediate feedback on students’ comprehension of material (perhaps using iClickers)
- In-class writing
- Demonstrations
- Self-assessment activities or learning logs
- Lectures interspersed with short, paired, or small-group discussions
- Brainstorming
- Case studies
- Extended discussions based on media presentations (perhaps delivered before class via Blackboard)
- Small-group or team discussions
- Role-playing
- Guided imagery exercises
- Small-group or team projects/presentations
——[Based on materials by Delivee Wright, Karl A. Smith, and Barbara Millis.]
Much of active-learning depends upon collaboration between students. Click here for a few how-to’s on using group learning activities.
To implement these or other active-learning ideas you are interested in trying, contact your Teaching & Learning Consultant at the BYU Center for Teaching & Learning.