Active Learning Strategies
Active Learning is an approach to instruction in which all students are engaged in the learning process.
Students are actively engaged in the course material through various instructional techniques such as discussions, problem-solving, case studies, role plays, and other instructional practices to name a few. The active learning approach requires the student to become actively responsible for acquiring and expanding on the course content instead of just notetaking through lectures. Instructor guidance is critical to facilitating and monitoring student progress and outcomes during active learning activities. After watching the furniture configuration videos, there are several instructional strategies provided that can be used with any course.
3 Possible Ways To Arrange Your Classroom for Active Learning
Furniture Configuration: As part of facilitating an active learning activity, learning space design directly influences the type of learning activities that occur. Depending on the activity, a decision should be made on the setup of the classroom configuration. At SCOHS we have three active learning spaces. Watch these three short videos below to get an idea of the variety of ways to arrange the furniture in our active learning space for the most conducive environment for your active learning activity.
Click on the linked strategy below to access the white page for the strategy. On the white page, you will find an overview of the strategy, directions and ideas for implementation of the strategy.
This strategy allows small groups of students to brainstorm and work together on compiling content by topic. Each group will work on each topic for a preset amount of time and then give a short presentation on the topic that they were originally assigned.
This strategy allows individual or small groups of students to navigate through a case study with particular learning objectives in mind. Students are guided through the case study with questions that lead them on a journey of exploration through each stage of the case study. An unfolding case is one that evolves over time in a manner that is unpredictable to the learner. New situations develop and are revealed with each encounter.
This strategy allows students to compile learning in a poster format. This can be accomplished with Poster Board or using a virtual poster site like Padlet. Utilizing images is an important component of a learning poster regardless of the tool used. If you instruct students to create their learning posters using Padlet, students can also incorporate video clips, weblinks, and other electronic documents. This strategy works well individually or in small groups.
Role-play is an effective way to develop skills and promote self-awareness within your college classroom. In healthcare, there are many interactions with patients, families, and other health professionals. To develop effective communication and process skills it is important to practice these skills. Role-play in a classroom setting offers a safe environment for students to learn and develop.
To learn more about this strategy, visit the Brightspace Instructor Resources & Faculty Development Course.
A concept map or conceptual diagram is an illustration that depicts suggested relationships between concepts. Concept maps can help visual learners grasp content; however, all learners can benefit from it. Creating concept maps shows relationships between ideas and concepts, helps memory recall, aids in developing higher-level thinking skills, and inspires creativity.
The “Jigsaw” strategy creates a learning environment in which each student is an important “piece” and is essential in completing the full understanding of the content. The Jigsaw can be integrated in a variety of ways. The students become “experts” on a “piece” of a topic in one group and then they switch groups to share their piece with the other “pieces” of the puzzle.
This strategy allows small groups of students to brainstorm and work together on compiling content by topic. Each group will work to present a google slide presentation of 8 slides that can be presented in 8 minutes. This strategy can be modified to 4 slides in 4 minutes or any combination that is conducive to your classroom. This strategy works well because it forces students to focus on particular content due to the constraints of time and the constraints on the number of slides in the presentation.
This strategy allows students to construct puzzles or quizzes in reference to material learned. Students must critically think in order to create clues for the puzzle or quiz questions. This strategy works well individually or in small groups.
This strategy allows students to critically think about the lecture and be active in participating in learning the content of the lecture. In this activity, questioners must ask two questions related to the material, the example givers must give examples or provide application of the material, the divergent thinkers must disagree with some points of the lecture, and the agreers must explain the points they found helpful and agreed with. A debrief of the activity should be implemented upon completion.
This strategy can be implemented in a variety of ways with a variety of content. The goal of this strategy is to get students to piece together information and think critically about the pieces in order to formulate a solution to a problem. One example of the application of this strategy, retrieved from Wolters Kluwer, suggests having items and pictures related to the content in several boxes around the room. Students individually or in small groups pick an item from each box and build a “patient story” for the class. The class then brainstorms strategies for treating the hypothetical patient.
Gallery walks can be done with remote learning with a few simple modifications found at this site.
Activity can be debriefed by having students answer a “big picture” question that they can use the information gained through the gallery walk to answer.
Debrief by having students share what they learned or answer questions for artifacts. This is good for a larger class where students may not have seen every artifact.
The level of questioning in a Gallery Walk can move from knowledge and comprehension to higher level skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. For additional assistance in developing questions using Bloom’s Taxonomy, see this resource.
Compare and Contrast acts as a practical and easy-to-use introduction to higher-order thinking. Compare and Contrast improves comprehension by highlighting important details, making abstract ideas more concrete, and reducing the confusion between related concepts.
Simulation not only allows for critical and evaluative thinking in a real-world situation; it also allows students to develop “soft skills” such as communication and empathy. The simulation experience also provides an avenue to help build skills in cultural awareness. It is important to remember that simulations should contain a level of ambiguity for students so that they have opportunities to make decisions.
This strategy is an activity that allows for students to act individually and in pairs. Students can circulate around the room, pair up, and share three facts or ideas about a concept with their partner. After a few rounds, students then work individually to “drain their brain” of all the facts or ideas they have accumulated about the topic during their paired conversations.
Analogies help students visualize concepts that are challenging in a memorable way. Typically, analogies are used to compare a familiar process or idea to a similar but unfamiliar process or idea.
(Courtesy of Dr. Hunsinger)
With a concept taped to the student's back, the student walks around the class calling on classmates to give a clue to the concept.....
(Courtesy of Professor Blais)
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