Active Learning Strategies

Wondering how to effectively implement active learning in your course? This helpful article from Faculty Focus provides a concise overview. If you would like to consult with someone on how to incorporate these (or other) strategies into your course, please contact cetl@camosun.ca to make an appointment with a CETL faculty member.

Before adapting any of the strategies in this guide to your classroom, consider these first steps:

Build up students’ comfort level

For many students, active learning is an unfamiliar and possibly uncomfortable experience. Passive learning is safe. Active learning involves taking risks. Start small and simple and build up students’ comfort level with active learning (and with each other) through fun icebreakers, team or community-building exercises, and activities where they are encouraged to mix and mingle with their peers. Many of the activities listed here can fulfill these functions. Remind students that learning can—and should—be fun!

If you are planning to use groups, think carefully about how they will be formed

Many of the activities here ask you to organize students into pairs/groups of 2–7. How will you do that in a way that is fair, equitable, and transparent? Will students self-select their groups? Will groups be randomized? Or will you have specific, objective criteria? Generally, groups that include a mix of abilities, backgrounds, and demographics will work well. An objective criterion could simply mean numbering students sequentially (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.) and then asking all the “ones” to form a group, all the “twos” and so on. More on group work...

• More ideas for forming groups.
• More about preparing for group work in the classroom.

Build on a shared experience

For most active learning strategies to be effective, students need a common experience on which to draw. This could be an assigned reading, video, lecture, podcast, field trip, guest speaker, etc. Think of this as the “content” portion of your class or preparations before class in a flipped classroom.

Photo by Shubham Sharan on Unsplash

The strategies in this guide are simple to implement. They are also most effective when carefully planned and repeated multiple times. Considering the following questions will help you to plan for success and to reflect on ways to improve each iteration of the activity.

Planning

1. What is the context? E.g., course, subject, level, experience, number and diversity of students, time of semester, time of day, duration of class period, etc.
2. What is the intended learning outcome? In other words, what do you want learners to know, feel, or be able to do after this experience?
3. Which strategy will you use? Why? How will it help you achieve the intended learning outcome?
4. How will you assess whether learners achieve the intended learning outcome?

Reflecting

1. Did learners achieve the intended learning outcome? Why or why not? What were their keys to success? What barriers prevented them from succeeding?
2. Were your instructions clear? Did you have to provide a lot of additional explanations or were learners able to grasp the process from the outset? How could you make instructions clearer?
3. Did you provide enough time for the activity? Too much time?