With active learning practices on the rise, educators are seeking pedagogically sound information about the best ways to integrate and execute active learning techniques within their own teaching. But what exactly is active learning and why is it important?
Active learning asks students to engage with the course material on a deeper level through reading, writing, talking, and listening exercises that push them into new ways of thinking about what they’re learning. What we next need to know about active learning won’t be all that easy to figure out, but it’s time we moved from generic understandings to the specific details. The following articles, free reports, and programs do just that—provide examples, strategies, and techniques of active learning that you can start applying to your own class today.
Browse the following topics for resources, programs, seminars, free reports, and articles to help guide you in your active learning journey:
Active Learning Strategies
Think-Pair-Share
Active Learning Classroom
Active Learning vs Passive Learning
Active Learning Strategies
“Learning is not a spectator sport. Students do not learn much just by sitting in class listening to teachers, memorizing prepackaged assignments, and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write about it, relate it to past experiences, apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves.” – A. Chickering and Z.F. Gamson, “Seven principles for good practice,” AAHE Bulletin 39 (March 1987), 3-7.
Faculty often report they don’t have time to plan extra learner-centered activities, due to increasing responsibilities, and they don’t have time to implement the activities in class because there’s too much content to cover.
Some of the most frequently cited concerns about active learning activities include that they take up too much class time, make it more difficult to control the class, work only in small classes, take too much time to design, and are difficult to grade.
If you feel this way, you’re not alone. But, you can still create engaging learning experiences for your students. And you can do it in 10 minutes (or less). The following articles and products offer lists and examples of active learning strategies that you can start implementing tomorrow. Rather than revamping your entire course design, take comfort in knowing that the following active learning strategies won’t take you weeks or months of planning. And, whether you’re in higher education, elementary, or high school, these active learning strategies can be adapted for both adults and younger students.
Free articles
- Active Learning That Distracts from Learning
- Three Active Learning Strategies That Push Students Beyond Memorization
- Five Ways to Engage Students in an Online Learning Environment
- Three Active Learning Strategies You Can Do in 10 Minutes or Less
- Deeper Thinking about Active Learning
- Active Learning: In Need of Deeper Exploration
- Course Redesign Finds Right Blend of Content Delivery and Active Learning
- From Passive Viewing to Active Learning: Simple Techniques for Applying Active Learning Strategies to Online Course Videos
- Active Learning: Changed Attitudes and Improved Performance
- Students Share Their Thoughts on Active Learning
- Implementing Active Learning and Student-Centered Pedagogy
Teaching Professor articles (requires paid subscription)
- Low-Risk Strategies to Promote Active Learning in Large Classes
- Active Learning: A Perspective from Cognitive Psychology
- Understanding Student Resistance to Active Learning
- Active Learning Wins
Related Products
Each 20-Minute Mentor is $19 for individual, one-week access, and each Magna Online Seminar is $39 for individual, one-week access.
Think-Pair-Share
It’s hard to muster the enthusiasm (and increased effort) necessary for an active, collaborative class environment when none of our students seem to reciprocate. We know an active learning pedagogy is better for student learning, but we also face circumstances of large classes, or of rooms with desks bolted to the floor in rows, or the online element. Our discipline has so many avenues into a fruitful conversation with students: primary sources, images, “what-if” questions, debates, exploration of difficult, controversial, or morally and ethically complex issues. But those conversations can’t happen if only one party participates. The key question for so much of our teaching, then, is what do we do when discussion dies?
A classic example is Think-Pair-Share (Barkley et al, 2014), in which the teacher assigns a question and then students think for a minute independently, form a pair to discuss their answers, and share their answers with a larger group. The goal is that all students achieve similar outcomes. Each student considers the same teacher-assigned question, and they all work on performing the same tasks: thinking, pairing, and sharing. The following articles and products offer alternatives to Think-Pair-Share techniques, and specific questions to capture the enthusiasm and engagement you hope for.
Free Articles:
- Creating the Space for Engaged Discussions
- Choosing the Best Approach for Small Group Work
- Cooperative Learning Structures and Deep Learning
- Class Discussion: From Blank Stares to True Engagement
- Stop Giving Them the Answers: Make Them Think
- The Flipped Classroom: Tips for Integrating Moments of Reflection
Teaching Professor articles (requires paid subscription)
- Understanding Different Types of Group Learning
- How to Include Introverts in Class Discussion
- Modifying Strategies
- Low-Risk Strategies to Promote Active Learning in Large Classes
Related Products:
Active Learning Classroom
“Enabling interaction in a large class seems an insurmountable task.” That’s the observation of a group of faculty members in a department at the University of Queensland. It’s a feeling shared by many faculty committed to active learning who face classes enrolling 200 students or more. How can you get and keep students engaged in these large, often required courses that build knowledge foundations in our disciplines? How do you actively engage students in your classroom? The following articles and products offer solutions to incorporating active learning in large classes, and provides answers to the questions that surround active engagement.
Free Articles:
- Active Learning: Surmounting the Challenges in a Large Class
- Keeping Introverts in Mind in Your Active Learning Classroom
- Active-Learning Ideas for Large Classes: Simple to Complex
- Implementing Active Learning and Student-Centered Pedagogy in Large Classes
Teaching Professor articles (requires paid subscription)
- Incorporating Active Learning into the Online Classroom
- Asking Better Questions about Active Learning
- Does Active Learning Work?
Related Products:
Active Learning vs Passive Learning
Most of us think we know what active learning is. The word engagement quickly comes to mind. Or, we describe what it isn’t: passive learning.
Yet passivity seems to be the norm for many college courses: students passively try to learn information from teachers who unwittingly cultivate a passive attitude in their learners. As the subject matter experts, many faculty are reluctant to give up some control. We know the material, there’s a lot to cover, and let’s face it, going the lecture route is often just plain easier for everyone. We “get through” the material, and students aren’t pressed to do anything more than sit back and take notes. Teacher and student thus become complicit in creating a passive learning environment. The following articles and products describe what passive learning is, and how active learning vs passive learning compare.
Free Articles:
- Putting Students in the Driver’s Seat: Technology Projects to Decrease Passivity
- Student Learning: Six Causes of Resistance
- Lecture vs. Active Learning: Reframing the Conversation
- More Evidence That Active Learning Trumps Lecturing
Teaching Professor articles (requires paid subscription)
- Why Students Resist Active Learning
- Understanding Student Resistance to Active Learning
- Asking Better Questions about Active Learning