What do you mean by active learning and passive learning?

An important concept to think about as a teacher is how people learn best.

Think back to a time when you learnt something. Not when you sat in a lecture theatre and passively listened to an expert talk on a subject, or when you crammed for an exam (only to forget the information immediately after the test). That is passive learning. The student isn’t doing anything but listening; they aren’t involved in the learning process. Passive learning disempowers the student and makes the teacher the focus of the learning environment.

I’m talking about a time when you were curious about something in your world and you wanted to know more. You explored, right?

You pondered the topic and how it related to your current life. You walked down the street and you saw components of the new learning pop up everywhere. Connections were made. Dots were joined. You discussed the topic with friends and deepened your understanding even further. You were in your own learning process.

This is called active learning and it is how people learn best. Active learning occurs through discussion and collaboration, critical thinking, problem-solving, and connecting new learning with one’s own world.

It facilitates divergent thinking (big-picture thinking, where students develop many different creative ideas or solutions to a topic) over convergent thinking (there is only one right answer or solution).

Active learning promotes a deep, conceptual understanding of a topic that is the hallmark of rich learning as opposed to passively listening to a lecture and cramming for exams.

In an active learning environment, the student is engaged, empowered, excited to learn. Students learn concepts deeply because concepts are made relevant and meaningful to their current lives. They are intrinsically motivated (“I want to learn this topic because I’m interested and engaged!”) over incentive or extrinsically motivated (“I want to learn this topic because I will get a nice certificate at the end.”)

So what exactly does active vs passive learning look like?