What is Active Learning?
Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.
Active learning is an instructional strategy where students take an active role in the learning process. In a traditional classroom, students listen to instructors present new information in the form of lectures and complete homework activities during their own time. In contrast, in an active learning environment students discuss, practice, apply, and reflect on information through collaborative activities in the classroom.
Active learning can take many forms, but it generally involves the following framework:
- Students encounter new information and ideas (e.g., watch videos, read articles, and attend live lecture presentations via Zoom).
- Students engage with information and ideas (e.g., participate in peer discussions, case studies, problem-solving activities, writing exercises, and other types of collaborative work).
- Students reflect on their learning (e.g., participate in polls or complete reflective writing exercises to share their thoughts at the end of the lesson or activity).
The Instructor's Role
The instructor’s role in an active learning classroom is to plan ways to engage students in the process of learning. Rather than presenting information in the traditional sense, instructors are now facilitators—guiding students through activities, providing continuous feedback, and assessing their work in real time.
Teaching for active learning means:
- Becoming a guide or facilitator in the classroom.
- Transforming students from passive listeners to active participants.
- Assessing students' prior knowledge and experiences.
- Encouraging independent, critical, and creative thinking.
- Focusing on the why rather than the how of learning.
- Promoting effective collaboration and problem solving.
- Developing and implementing interactive, student-centered activities.
- Exploring the relevance of course topics in students’ professional and everyday lives.
Active Learning Strategies
Active Learning strategies (or activities) should encourage students to think both about the work they are doing and the purpose behind it. Likewise, the strategies you select should serve the learning outcomes of your lesson and overall course.
Consider these questions when selecting active learning strategies:
- Does this support course learning outcomes for students?
- What skills should students be able to perform by the end of our class session?
- What activity will allow my students to practice these skills?
- When will my students encounter and engage with information and ideas (e.g., online prior to class, during class, or after class)?
- When will my students reflect on what they have learned (e.g., online prior to class, during class, or after class)?
Many types of teaching activities can encourage active learning. Get inspired by these active learning strategies:
| Strategy | Description | Online Tools |
|---|---|---|
| Think Pair Share |
Three-step process:
|
Zoom: Zoom Main Room, Breakout Groups, and Screen Share |
|
Pro and Con Grids |
Students are broken out into small groups where they list the pros and cons of a particular issue. Students then come back to the larger class to share and discuss points on each side. |
Zoom: Main Room and Breakout Groups; Whiteboard feature can be used to create an interactive Pro/Con Grid |
| One-Minute Reflections |
At the end of class or after an activity, students are given one minute to answer one to three reflective questions. Example questions:
|
Canvas: Discussion Forums, and Assignments Zoom: Main Room |
| Polling |
A few polling approaches can be used:
|
Zoom: Polls |
| Case Studies and Real-world Problems |
Students examine real-world problems or situations (e.g., They are provided news articles and practical scenarios, or asked to find their own cases.) Students analyze the case in small groups using provided guidelines and a framework, and then present their findings to the entire class. |
Canvas: Discussion Forums, and Group Assignments Zoom: Main Room, Breakout Rooms, Screen Sharing, and Whiteboard for Annotation |
| Peer Reviews |
Students provide written and verbal feedback on materials created by their classmates, including written papers, lab reports, design work, media, and other projects. Students are given guiding questions, rubrics to fill out, or key elements to look for when conducting their reviews. |
Canvas: Peer Review Assignments and Discussions Zoom: Main Room, Breakout Rooms, Screen Sharing, Whiteboard, and Chat |
| Collaborative Group Work |
Students are grouped and given an assignment or problem to work on together. After which, groups can share or present their work to the larger class. |
Canvas: Group Discussions and Group Assignments Zoom: Main Room, Breakout Rooms, Screen Sharing, and Annotation |
| Role Play or Simulations |
Students take the perspective of a fictional or historical character and are challenged to review a topic, question, or problem. Students can role play in small group scenarios or with the entire class – immersing themselves in realistic situations, making decisions from the perspective of their character, challenging their own views/biases, and learning appropriate behaviors. |
Zoom: Main Room and Breakout Rooms |
| Concept Mapping |
Students in small teams produce a graphic representation of key concepts. This can include mind maps, diagrams, flowcharts, and more. Students work together to find associations and connections between concepts, understand hierarchies and dependencies, and link concepts to information they already know. Students can present concept maps to the larger group for feedback and further development. |
Canvas: Group Discussions and Group Assignments Zoom: Whiteboard, Annotation |
| Experiential Learning (Virtual Site Visits) |
Students virtually “visit” sites to help bring theoretical concepts to life, and then discuss and reflect on those experiences. A few approaches can be used:
|
Canvas: Images, Videos, and Links to Virtual Tours Zoom: Main Room and Screen Sharing |
| Surveys, Quizzes, and Knowledge Checks |
Students participate in self-paced or live, collaborative quizzes, knowledge checks, and surveys to receive regular feedback and evaluate their learning progress. These quizzes can be interweaved between activities. |
Canvas: Quizzes and Panopto Knowledge Checks Zoom: Main Room, Polling, and Screen Sharing |
| Debates | Students break out into smaller groups and engage in debates about controversial subjects. Assessment of student performance should include both student and instructor evaluations, that can be incorporated into the course grade. |
Canvas: Quizzes Zoom: Main Room, Breakout Rooms, Screen Sharing, and Annotation |
| Games |
Students participate in live games, playful exercises, or digital gaming activities to learn information at their own pace, receive real-time feedback, and even make mistakes within a safe environment. Examples of games include puzzles and quizzes, trivial pursuit, lab interactions, virtual board games, induction exercises, improv activities, simulations, and other educational games. |
Canvas: Quizzes, Links to Interactive Games Zoom: Main Room, Breakout Rooms, Polling, Screen Share, and Annotations |
| Students Teaching Students |
Peer-to-peer teaching allows students to share and construct knowledge with their class. A few approaches:
|
Canvas: Group Discussions Zoom: Main Room, Breakout Rooms, Screen Sharing, Whiteboard, and Annotations |
Tips: Active Learning for the Remote Classroom
Moving your classroom to a virtual space, such as Canvas and Zoom, brings new opportunities for student engagement. As you continue to explore activities that promote active learning, take a moment to review these helpful tips:
- At the start of class, gauge your students' level of understanding of the topics that will be discussed and their expectations so that you know what needs to be covered and how much time to devote to each activity.
- Provide clear instructions up-front of any activities that students will be participating in and how these activities will support their learning and help them achieve course outcomes.
- When engaging students in a virtual classroom, begin with simple low-stakes activities that allow students to first get comfortable with the format. You can increase the difficulty of activities as students get more comfortable.
- Provide time and ample opportunities for your students to ask you questions and reflect on their learning.
- Minimize barriers by planning through the tools, software, and technology needed to support activities. This includes considering time constraints, student access to reliable technology, live meeting spaces, and more.
- Do a test run of your activities and tools with a colleague before incorporating them into the live classroom with students. You will want to ensure that all the necessary Zoom features are enabled prior to your online class session. Some features cannot be enabled once the meeting has launched.
- Offer multiple ways for students to demonstrate their knowledge. For example, written prompts, graphic representations, oral presentations, quizzes, games, etc.