Importance of active learning
I hear it and I forget it;
I see it and I remember it;
I do it and I understand it.
Students learn best when they are actively involved in the learning process. To help our students learn more, we need to provide multiple opportunities for them to interact and participate actively. They should be encouraged to participate in frequent discussions of materials presented in class, apply familiar ideas in new settings or contexts, solve problems, and practise newly acquired skills.
The following sections focus on how we can promote a more active form of learning and, in particular, the practical strategies for encouraging our students to interact and participate more actively in class.
Types of interactions
Students' participation in class can take different forms. It usually involves students interacting with one or more of the following:
- their teacher: e.g. brain-storming, asking and answering teacher's questions,
- their classmates: e.g. paired or small group discussions, debates, collaborative problem-solving exercises, and
- presented learning resources: e.g. case studies, reviewing and responding to audio-visual materials shown in class, problem/task sheets, etc.
Some useful guidelines
Interactions in the classroom seldom happen spontaneously and by chance. Simply asking 'Any questions?' at the end of the lesson is not going to be very helpful in getting our students actively involved. A lot of planning and preparation are required for that to take place.
Students are more likely to interact and participate in class when they are 'directed' by their teachers to do so, and when they are given a specific task to complete.
To encourage interaction and participation, we need to devise tasks or learning activities that require the students to interact with you, their classmates, or the learning materials you have prepared. The following guidelines may help you in designing appropriate learning activities:
Use a series of small tasks rather than a single big one.
Make your tasks small enough to be tackled successfully in class.
Give specific instructions on what, how and for when to complete the task.
Make the expected outcomes of the task very clear for students.
Vary the type of tasks.
Encourage students to work in pairs or in small groups.
Some practical strategies for promoting interaction in class are listed below. While not every one of them will work for you, they might give you some ideas of the kind of things you may try in your own practice.
Practical strategies for promoting interaction in class
Break down your lectures into mini-lectures
- Break your lecture into a series of mini-lectures of 20 minutes each separated by appropriate learning tasks to be carried out by students in class.
Ask students questions and encourage them to ask you questions
- Guide students to understand the subject matter and check their understanding by asking them carefully planned questions.
- Provide opportunities for students to ask you questions by giving them a break (of say, five minutes) to reflect on what they have learned, write down their questions, and ask you questions.
Set specific tasks for students to do in class
- Encourage students to learn more actively by building in specific tasks for them to do at various points in your lecture.
- Examples of meaningful student activities are:
- perform a calculation,
- give new examples, or applications of the concept from their own experience,
- read something and then discuss a question based on the reading,
- view some audio-visual material and complete specific tasks based on it,
- use newly acquired concepts to solve a small problem,
- work on an incomplete handout,
- take a short test and then discuss the answers, etc.
Encourage group learning
- Encourage students to interact with each other by asking them to work in pairs, or in small groups of three to four. Be specific about what you want them to do.
- Set tasks that require students to ask each other questions, share experience, and examine or evaluate each other's questions or answers.
Helping students to participate
Even when given the chance, a lot of our students are very reluctant to ask questions or answer questions in class. This is probably due to lack of confidence, and/or a fear of appearing to be 'attention seekers'.
We can make it easier for our students to ask or answer questions in class by:
- responding in a welcoming and sympathetic way to students' questions or answers,
- allowing students enough time to think over their questions or answers before inviting them to respond,
- giving them chances to work out the questions or answers in groups before asking them in public, and
- developing a friendly, collaborative, non-threatening atmosphere in class.
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The problem of large lectures
Undoubtedly, there are more difficulties in promoting interaction and partcipation in large lectures. However, it is not impossible to do so - though the process has to be more carefully planned and controlled - and the principles and strategies which have been outlined above still apply. It is important though to introduce interactive activities in a limited and structured way. You might like to consider the following possibilities.
· Stop in the middle of a lecture, and ask students to discuss in pairs (or groups of three or four) any difficulties that they have encountered. Then ask for questions.
· Set a small problem based on work that has just been covered, and ask student to tackle it in groups of two or three. (You might like to wander around the lecture theatre as they work.)
· Ask students to work on an incomplete handout, in pairs or small groups. Then take questions on any difficulties they have encountered.
Above all else let students know exactly what it is that you are asking them to do - and why.
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Useful readings
Deacon, R. (1994), More effective seminars, New Academic, spring 1994, 6-8.
Habeshaw, T. (1995), The art of lecturing 1, New Academic, spring 1995, 5-7.
Habeshaw, T. (1995), The art of lecturing 2 , New Academic, summer 1995, 3-6.