Facilitating Active Learning

Clare MilsomMartyn Stewart

Academic Enhancement Unit

AimTo provide an evidence-based rationale for active learning

Outcomes

1. Recognise the purpose of active learning2. Recognise how to structure a teaching session that actively engages

students3. Identify strategies to promote student engagement

Board of study next week – ant more reps – please?

Exploratory Leximancer Analysis of the Open text 2010-2011

Comparisons of main concepts and associated sentimentsConcept Year 1 (mirror) Year 2 (mirror) Year 3 (NSS)Course Favourable Favourable FavourableFeedback Favourable Unfavourable UnfavourableCoursework Favourable Unfavourable UnfavourableUniversity Favourable Unfavourable UnfavourableTeaching Favourable Favourable FavourableWork Favourable Favourable UnfavourableModule Unfavourable Unfavourable UnfavourableTimetable Unfavourable Unfavourable n/a

Two most semantically important themesYear 1 (mirror) Year 2 (mirror) Year 3 (NSS)

Favourable Course Favourable Course Favourable CourseUnfavourable Lectures Unfavourable Time Unfavourable Library

Assignments, Communication, Time

Comments of ‘mirror’ year 1 and year 2 surveys

‘ (staff) present their lectures with enthusiasm and create a good teaching atmosphere’.

‘Many lecturers have great knowledge and "poor" teaching skills’

‘Don't always feel challenged. Some lectures the slides are just read aloud, nothing more to add.’

‘Some staff find it difficult to engage students in lectures’

‘As there are so many people in the lectures it sometimes feels that it is impersonal and that I am just a number.’

‘Its annoying when you turn up to a lecture and the lecturer only reads off the power point defeating the whole point of going to the lecture, what is stopping me from just reading the power point of blackboard and staying at home?’

Sensory register

Immediate memory

Working memory

Long-term memory

What happens when we learn?

Huge volume of information enters brain

40,000 bits per second.

98% discarded

Sensory register filters out what is unnecessary but tuned to be alert to ‘danger’.

Distraction or anxiety in classroom directattention away from learning

Sensory register

Do you consider yourself a ‘visual’ or ‘aural’ learner?

Write down your preference

Workingmemory

Key to learning and instructional design

Links to individual learning styles& transferring information to memory

0 10 20 30 40Time in Minutes

Deg

ree

of re

tenti

on

Prime-time 1

Prime-time 2

Down-time

Retention During a Learning Episode

(Sousa 2000)

New information Closure(Summarise)

Practice(Reflect / apply)

0 20 40 60 80Time in Minutes

Less

on le

ngth

(Sousa 2000)

20Min.

40Min.

80Min.

Prime-time 1 Down-time Prime-time 2

Approximate ratio of prime-times to down-time during a learning episode

0 20 40 60Time in Minutes

Less

on le

ngth

(Sousa 2000)

20Min.

40Min.

80Min.

Prime-time 1 Down-time Prime-time 2

80

Approximate ratio of prime-times to down-time during a learning episode

Impact on learning1. Engagement and performance (Liu and Stengel 2011); (Prather and

Brissenden 2009)2. Combat conformity and shyness (Stowell et al. 2010)3. Student-reported increase in attention (Bunce et al. 2010) 4. Students report as ‘fun’ (Bachman and Bachman 2011)

Iterative (grouped) – stage 1 To which group does this fossil belong?

Bivalve

Brachiopod

Trilobite

Anomorph

0% 0%0%0%

1. Bivalve

2. Brachiopod

3. Trilobite

4. Anomorph

Iterative (grouped) – stage 2 Note: it is symmetrical across the valves. Change your mind?

Bivalve

Brachiopod

Trilobite

Anomorph

0% 0%0%0%

1. Bivalve2. Brachiopod3. Trilobite4. Anomorph

Iterative (grouped) – stage 3These fossils were found in a quarry in North Wales. What do they suggest about the age of the rocks?

< 65Ma

65 – 250 M

a

> 250Ma

0% 0%0%

1. < 65Ma2. 65 – 250 Ma3. > 250Ma

Benefits for the lecturer

Fast and frequent feedback Develops a classroom consciousness Changes delivery – contingent or ‘just-in-time’ teaching. Makes content count. Increases own confidence self efficacy

Using the clickers made me feel isolated from the group.

I think that using the clickers brought the class together.

0% 50% 100%

Agree UndecidedDisagree

I spent more time looking at the screen than at the lecturer

I think the tutor would have been able to make more eye contact if they had not been

using technology

0% 50% 100%

Agree UndecidedDisagree

Impact of CPS on teacher immediacy

Genuine interaction… Increased confidence Instant rapport Immediate emotional engagement (Stowell and Nelson

2007). Improves the teaching (and learning) much more quickly. Raised assessment scores (Mayer et al. 2009) also (King

and Joshi 2008 – gender)

Builds a Learning Community

‘There is nothing like teaching a groupof happy, smiling, switched-on students’

City centre shops

Schemas & assimilation

Schemaa mental structure or framework which encompasses memories, ideas, concepts & programmes for action pertinent to a particular topic

(definition by Banyard & Grayson, 2000)

Stewart (2011) Evaluating effect of using concept mapping in lectures to develop complex thinking

Analysis of structure within reports: % of scripts assigned to structural levels

Bachman, L.and Bachman, C. (2011) A Study of Classroom Response System Clickers: Increasing Student Engagement and Performance in a Large Undergraduate Lecture Class on Architectural Research, Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 22 (1)5-21

Briggs, C.L. and Keyek-Franssen, D. (2010) Clickers and CATs: Using Learner Response Systems for Formative Assessments in the Classroom, EDUCAUSE Quarterly 33(4).

Bunce,Di, Flens, E.Aand Neiles, K. (2010) How Long Can Students Pay Attention in Class? A Study of Student Attention Decline Using Clickers. Journal of Chemical Education, 87(12), 1438-1443

DeBourgh, G.A. (2008) Use of classroom ‘clickers’ to promote reasoning skills. Nurse Education in Practice, 8, 76-87.King, D.B. and Joshi, S. (2008) Gender differences and the uses and effectiveness of personal response devices. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 17, 544-552.

Howard-Jones, P.A. & Demetriou, S. (2009), ‘Uncertainty and engagement with learning games’, Instructional Science, vol. 37, pp. 519-536.

Liu, W. and Stengel, D.N. (2011) Improving Student Retention and Performance in Quantitative Courses Using Clickers. international Journal for Technology in Mathematics Education, 18 (1)51-58

Mayer, R.E. et al. (2009) Clickers in college classrooms: fostering learning with questioning methods in large lecture classes. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 34, 51-57.

Mollborn, S. and Hoekstra A. (2010) A Meeting of Minds”Using Clickers for Critical Thinking and Discussion in Large Sociology Classes Teaching Sociology 38(1) 18-27

Morling, B et al. (2008) Efficacy of personal response systems in large introductory psychology classes. Teaching of Psychology, 35, 45-50.Peterson, B (2008) Classroom performance systems, library instruction and instructional design. Project Muse, 8(3), 1-10.

Prather, E. And Brissenden, G. (2009) Clickers as Data Gathering Tools and Students' Attitudes, Motivations, and Beliefs on Their Use in This ApplicationAstronomy Education Review, 8(1)103-110

Piaget, J . (1970) ‘Piaget’s theory’, in PH Mussen (ed.), Carmichael’s Manual of Child Psychology, 3rd edn, vol. 1, Wiley & Sons, New York.

Sousa, D.A. (2000) How the brain learns, Corwin Press.

Stewart, M. (2011) Joined up thinking? Evaluating the use of concept mapping to develop ‐complex system learning, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, iFirst, DOI:10.1080/02602938.2010.534764

Stowell, J., Oldham, T., Bennet, D (2010) Personal author, compiler, or editor name(s); click on any author to run a new search on that Using Student Response Systems ("Clickers") to Combat Conformity and Shyness. Teaching of Psychology, 37(2)135-140

Stowell, J. and Nelson, J.M. (2007) Benefits of electronic audience response systems on student participation, learning and emotion. Teaching of Psychology, 34, 253-258.

Sullivan, R. (2008) Principles for constructing good clicker questions: going beyond rote learning and stimulating active engagement with course content. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 37, 335-347.