New Year, New Learning Strategies!

New year, new active learning! If you are reviewing your material to teach for spring semester, jazz it up! This is the time!

Resources:

https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/active-learning/

https://www.ajpe.org/doi/full/10.5688/ajpe759186

Active learning definitions:

-Instructional activities involving students in doing things and thinking about what they are doing (Bonwell and Eison, 1991)

-Approaches that focus on developing students’ skills than on transmitting information and require that students do something—read, discuss, write

-Students’ efforts to actively construct their knowledge

-Opposite of passive learning…aka reading slides to students

Here are some strategies to get you started:

Think-Pair-Share

-Give students a problem/case

-Students first think about problems alone (think)

-Students then discuss the topic with another student (pair)

-Students discuss the topic with a larger group (share)

Muddiest Point

-Students spend 1-2 minutes answering questions about anything that remains confusing/misunderstood about the lecture

Games

-Select a game that you like, select objectives for the lecture/session, then overlay the content onto the framework of the game!

Audience Response Systems (ARS)/Clickers

-Can be integrated into a classroom session for a quick formative or summative assessment

Case Studies

-Require students to apply their knowledge, skills, and attitudes to solve a problem relating to the course material

-Helps prepare students for case-based exam questions