Promoting Active Learning

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Promoting Active Learning

• Refer to Chapter 2 in Text

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Opening Question

• Take a moment to reflect on a class that had you
  involved.
• Come up with a positive and a negative example.
  Jot them down.

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Your Goal Get students engaged in learning

• Thinking, talking, moving, or emotionally
  involved so that what you teach gets into
  long-term memory.

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Is this active? Nope. You want to go from this
outcome
The secret to being a bore is to tell everything.
Voltaire
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To doing this!
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Your Turn

• You have jotted down your reflections and
  experiences with active learning.
• Now, take a moment and share your knowledge and
  experience by writing it down. (you will want to
  keep a notes sheet- you turn it in at the end)

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What is active learning?

• You might think of active learning as an approach
  to tutoring in which students engage the material
  they study through reading, writing, talking,
  listening, and reflecting.
• How can you connect this to your learning style?
  Explain.

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Active learning

• Analysis of the research literature . . .
  suggests that students must do more than just
  listen They must read, write, discuss, or be
  engaged in solving problems. Most important, to
  be actively involved, students must engage in
  such higher-order thinking tasks as analysis,
  synthesis, and evaluation (Chickering Gamson
  1987).
• University of Minnesota Center for Teaching and
  Learning

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Information Processing Model

• 1. Student receives/takes in information
• 2. Sorts through the information, organizes,
  modifies so it makes sense
• 3. Stores the information in to long-term memory
• Reflecting on you LSI how would step 1 look for
  you?
• What can one do to get information from STM to
  LTM?

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Promoting Active Learning(complete the table
below)
Comment from Student Appropriate Response from Tutor
Please give me the answers to the worksheet items
I am just trying to get a D on the tests so that I pass the course
I slept in missed the class. Can you teach me the information I missed?
You think of one
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Information Processing Learning Strategies
Source of Information Stage 1 What do you do to take accurate complete information? Stage 2 What do you do to sort through, organize, modify information so that it makes sense to you? Stage 3 What do you do to store retain information for a test or assignment?
In Class
Reading Assignments
Preparing for Tests
Refer to page 18 in text
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Active lecturing

• Although not recommended in tutoring, it
  sometimes may be necessary.
• Rule 1 Make it brief
• Parts of a lecture
• Beginning (introduce the skill)
• Middle (explain the skill)
• End (demonstrate the skill)

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Beginning of the Session

• Gain students attention, motivate them to learn
• Use activity, question, picture, music, or video
  clip to draw them into the topic (this will
  depend on the subject)
• Write out the objectives
• Access prior knowledge
• Use activities that allow students to relate what
  they already know to the concept to be studied.

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Brainstorm

• What do you know about the ways students learn?
• Start with your clearest thoughts and then move
  on to those that are kind of out there!

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Middle of the Session

• Pause every twelve or fifteen minutes for
  students to process the information actively.
• (Research shows that people cant attend to
  lectures for longer than about 12 or 15 minutes.)

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Middle, cont.

• You either have your learners attention or they
  can be making meaning, but not both at the same
  time. Teachers who dont allow time for students
  to process information do an enormous amount of
  reteaching.
• Use active learning strategies to prevent
  students from wandering off.

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Middle, cont.

• Strategies may be used with any size class in
  only a few minutes time, done alone or in pairs.
  (Use a timer to keep to schedule.)
• Build in the pause as you plan the lesson, or
  build it into your PowerPoint
• Adapt strategies that fit the particular lesson.
  Many strategies are adaptable to multiple uses.

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NOTE CHECK

• Take a few minutes to check your notes ( this
  would be done with a partner)
• Summarize the most important information.
• Identify (and clarify if possible) any sticking
  points.

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End of the lecture wrapping it up

• Summarize information, provide closure, and ask
  students to connect the information to
  themselves, their own values, and its application
  in the world
• Ask students for the muddiest point of the day
  (or something similar).
• Review and closure activities that foreshadow the
  next lesson

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A good wrap up Strategy

• Please answer the following
• 3 things you gained
• 2 things you will use in your class right away
• 1 thing you want to learn more about

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Resources

• Active Learening Creating Excitement in the
  Classroom by Charles C. Bonwell and James A.
  Eison
• University of Minnesota Center for Teaching and
  Learning
• A Training Guide for College Tutors Peer
  Educators, Lipsky.