The Importance of Active Learning

You have probably already heard of it, active learning. But what is it now exactly? Does it really contribute anything good to the students' development? Get ready to find out about it in this blogpost. I will share with you all the knowledge I have gathered on active learning, its benefits for the students, and some examples of active learning strategies/activities. Are you ready to give your classes a real boost? Here we go!

What is 'active learning'?

First of all, let's figure out what is understood under the term 'active learning'. I found the following sentence in the Learning to Teach in the Secondary School (Capel, Leask & Younie, 2019) handbook. "Active learning occurs when a learner takes some responsibility for the development of the activity, emphasising that a sense of ownership and personal involvement is the key to successful learning." This definition of active learning felt so accurate to me that I had to share it with you in its original state. So, for learning to be active the student needs to consciously participate and contribute to the process of gaining new knowledge and they also have to feel a connection to the information provided to them. This can also be regarded as "purposeful interaction with ideas, concepts and phenomena" (Capel, Leask & Younie, 2019). Active learning helps students to learn independently and think critically. It also enhances peer interaction, team work, and it can stimulate mutual respect and appreciation of the viewpoint of others (Capel, Leask & Younie, 2019). But for all these benefits of active learning to really occur, it is necessary that the teacher is present to provide feedback and guide the learning of their students in the right direction. Learning by doing but without proper guidance, can work reversedly.

How can you incorporate active learning?

If you ask me, I think every subject can be enriched with active learning activities or strategies if you are willing to think creatively enough. Of course it always helps to view some examples of how others have included active learning into their lessons. That's exactly why I have gathered 10 different types of active learning in the classroom. Read on and see what strategies might be useful for your classroom. And remember, think creatively.

1. Muddy points

With this assignment you ask your students to write down on a piece of paper their 'muddiest points' of today. This essentially means the points the students found the most confusing or difficult. This requires the students to actively think about the information they received during class and to rate them in difficulty. When going through the results of this activity, you will also learn which students struggle with what topics. This in turn helps you as a teacher to spend extra attention to the students with most difficulties.

2. Think-Pair-Share

As the name indicates, there are three stages to this activity. First, the students individually think about the topic or question. Then, they pair up with a classmate and finally, they will in turn share their thoughts on the topic. This activity causes for students to form their own opinion and then try and explain their opinion. Some meaningful interactions can take place because of this assignment as the students are sharing ideas and opinions. It also challenges the students to also be accepting of other people's views.

3. Concept maps

In a concept map, you ask of students to put everything they have learned about a certain topic into a graphic organiser, also showing the connections between different information. This is a good way of gaining insight into how well your students understand the theory. To make this activity a bit more contemporary, you can let your students work on different kinds of software to develop their technological skills. Students may know more about creative tools than we might think, so I believe the best way to present this activity is to tell your students "they are free in designing their concept map, but it has to be designed and submitted digitally".

4. Directed paraphrasing

For this activity, you instruct your students to explain in their own words the theory they have just learned in class. This way you are letting students make the theory more personal, by letting them reformulate the words in their own way. And here we have yet another way to check the comprehesion of your students.

5. Expert groups

With the activity Expert groups, you are dividing your students in multiple groups (depending on the size of your class and the amount of topics you have). All these groups will have their own topic of expertise that they will study for a certain amount of time in class. After all groups have collected as much knowledge on their subjects and are ready, you let all groups teach the rest of the class about their topic. Every group is now 'an expert' on their subject. An effective way of teaching is to teach others, so by making students explain concepts they will again better understand it for themselves.

6. Case studies

You might've already guessed, in this activity you present your students with a certain real-life case related to your course. The students will be instructed to use their gained knowledge from your class to see how it is related to the presented case. If your course allows so, you can also let your students think of solutions to a problem if it's present.

7. Experiential learning

A way of learning that also really sticks in your memory is by experiencing it for yourself firsthand. To give an example, you could take your history class to a historical site and mention the theory you discussed in class that is related to that certain location. The students will be more likely to envision the theory when then find themselves in a place where your subject 'comes to life'.

8. Peer review

For this activity you will have your students prepare some kind of work (e.g. a paper or any other assignment) and let them hand it in twofold, one for you and one for a classmate. The students will be asked to critically view their classmates' work and formulate feedback. You can choose how much in-depth you want the feedback to be, of course depending on the target group you are teaching.

9. Brainstorming

Brainstorming is actually seen in multiple of these activities, but it can also be executed as an activity on its own. You can do this with the whole class or choose to divide the students in smaller groups. You present the students with a certain topic related to your course and let the students go about on gathering all kinds of information that they already have. So the students could talk about the things that come to mind when thinking about that topic. With everyone's knowledge and ideas the group will come to a broader view of the subject.

10. Debating

This activity is similar to expert groups in the aspect that the participants have to have some kind of knowledge on their topic. But in debating this knowledge goes one step further and also asks of the students to formulate a (strong) opinion about the topic. They will defend their viewpoint with arguments and this will contribute not only in their understanding of the topic, but also enhance their speaking and argumentative skills.

As you can see, active learning comes in a variety of forms and can contribute meaningfulness to your classes. I hope you now understand the concept of active learning and have an idea on how to implement this in your classroom. Your students will be more than happy to have more activities incorporated in your classes! Now I will conclude this article with a quote to remind you, our inspirational teachers, why we have chosen this career path.