Welcome
What is Active Learning?
Let’s begin by reviewing the different schools of thought that you might be already familiar with. There are three fundamental schools of thought when designing educational curriculum: Behaviorism, Cognitivism , and Constructivism.
“Behaviorists’ strategies can be used to teach the “what” (facts), Cognitive strategies can be used to teach the “how” (processes and principles), and Constructivist strategies can be used to teach the “why” (higher level thinking that promotes personal meaning and situated and contextual learning)” (Anderson T. & Elloumi F., 2004, p.7)
(The Book is also available online: http://cde.athabascau.ca/online_book/)
A simplified Overview of the Learning Theories arranged nicely in a map can be viewed in the following site: “Learning Theories Site Map”.
For more detailed information, please refer to our References and Resources link.
While designing your course materials, you can include principles from all three, however there is more emphasis nowadays on the Constructivist approach which sees the learner as being an active participant. This concept leads to the Active Learning Concept.
According to Chickering and Gamson, “Learning is not a spectator sport. Students do not learn by sitting in class listening to teachers, memorizing prepackaged assignments, and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write about it, relate to it to past experiences, and apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves” (as cited in Bonwell, & Eison, 1991, p.3)
How can Active learning be achieved?
Active Learning can be incorporated in any learning environment as follows:
| Creative Instructors | Visual based instruction | Writings (reflective journals, summaries,essays, critiques) |
| Pausing | Short Quizzes and Tests | Demonstrations |
| Questioning | “Good” Discussions | Problem Solving |
| Cooperative Learning | Debates | Drama |
| Role Play | Simulations & Games | Peer Teaching |
| Readings, case studies | Projects- group or individual | Guided Lecture |
| Community building | Study/support groups | Experiential Learning |
In fact, you probably already use several techniques in Active Learning in your face-to-face classrooms, like discussions, peer teaching, group work, questioning, role playing, debates, etc.
How to incorporate Active Learning into online teaching?
Click here to view some experiences from distance instructors that may provide more insight!
In the “Active Learning at a distance” link, you will be exposed to Best Practices in both, Synchronous and Asynchronous Learning environments.