Active Learning

Ann Moser

Active Learning

• Includes any activity in which every student must think, create, or solve a problem.

• One activity you do that, under this definition, is active.

The New Bloom

My Class: Grammar

• By college-age, learning this foundation skill takes action on my part and his.

• My part– Isolate errors, starting with the most egregious.

• Poke, prod, threaten to convince him of the worth of his extra-involvement

• Become his coach• Show him how to be a life-long learner

– Develop a plan of action• For this student, it was a MOOC

• Crafting an Effective Writer: Tools of the Trade (Fundamental English Writing)

• https://www.coursera.org/course/basicwriting

What was your best learning experience?

• Something from a college class that you still remember today.

• How was it taught?

For me, Microbiology. Growing and identifying bacteria.

How? I had to grow it. Figure out what it wanted and watched the gunk grow; saw it under a microscope; drew it; researched what it could do in the real world; clean up after it without infecting myself and others. Still remember the terms, the names, the images.

E. coli• Food poisoning • Vomiting• Pneumonia• Cramps• Also occurs in sympatico in humans

• Wash hands

Techniques I Have Used

• List of their expectations. Attitude survey. Background knowledge they are starting with.

• In-class writing. Especially after a question. Give people time to think before answering. Builds trust.

• Reaction statements. Gives students a chance to freely respond to a concept, reading, assignment. First, overall reaction. In your own words. Don’t need to explain:

Student log that begins with reaction statement:

• People today often think of the Puritans as dull, joyless stoics who did nothing but study Scripture and pray. However, this is a poorly reconstructed image of the Puritans, one which Puritans themselves would desire to avoid. Anne Bradstreet’s poetry depicts a person with a strong commitment to Puritan theology but also a realistic life of praise to God, regardless of her circumstances. The theme that I saw throughout several of Bradstreet's poems is her dependence and calm trust in God despite her adverse circumstances.

• First, in “An Epitaph on My Dear and Ever-Honoured Mother Mrs. Dorothy Dudley,” Anne celebrates the life her mother lived, praising her mom for her loving life life to the people around her. She describes her mom as “A loving mother and obedient wife, / A loving neighbor, pitiful to poor,” (“Mother” 2-3). She also praises her mother's intense devotion to God's word and prayer when she says, “And in her closet constant hours she spent; / Religious in all her words and ways,” (“Mother” 11-12.) Rather than focus on the sadness she surely felt at her mother's passing, Bradstreet instead focused on celebrating the testimony her mother lived and the legacy that lived on afterward.

Techniques, con’t

• Authentic assignments

– Elizabeth’s paper was a product of an authentic assignment

– Real purpose

– Real audience

– = real essay

For any topic chosen, require brainstorming, proposal, feedback, audience profile, purpose.

Con’t

• Presentations

– Teach a concept to the class

– Present research from a research project. Focus narrows, documentation is clarified. Purpose of research becomes real.

– Has to include a visual

– Has to engage the audience

• Discussion leaders– You may need to lecture, but a discussion leader

prepares to guide the class (or groups) on sub-topics in the lecture.

• Students bring outside illustrations/examples of a concept being worked on.

– Log credit, homework credit, participation credit– Several offer their examples and explain

Discussion Board

• Logs, in my class, are presented on the Discussion Board. Step-by-step practice of critical analysis.

– Good place to go back and review how others analyzed a story or poem. How analysis built the interpretation.

– Credit for responses

– Instructor has to be one of the responders, showing what that means, how to do it, what it should look like, wording, tone, use of examples.

Discussion Board

• Choose the best post in the forum and defend answer.• One student summarizes the posts on Discussion Board

forum

– Uses specific references to particular posts that back the overall summary purpose.

– How did that change your idea, perspective, interpretation?

– Good extra credit challenge.

Group Work

• Has to be modeled first—

• Conferences with each group

• Present a model group for the class

• Panopto group work

• Learn how to be a working group. How to take turns, offer ideas, language used, how to talk in your field.

Active Involvement

• Teach them how to annotate a text.• Students contribute to PowerPoint lecture by adding

to lecture slides.• Do field research and report back. Helps them to

observe the point of the content covered. How it is applied elsewhere. Clarifies documentation of source.

• Want them to understand how writing is done in your field? Have them deconstruct a journal article. X-ray it, question it, annotate, outline, react, summarize, follow through on some of the documentation.

• Paper, project, research that requires interview(s).

• Create scenarios. – My class: Cast a movie of a story/novel we are

reading. – How would you get Ferris Bueller involved in class?

“The one doing the talking is the one doing the learning.”