Active learning has had growing popularity in recent years, with departments and educators touting its importance and professional societies calling for broader implementation of it. But what is active learning? What evidence exists for its effectiveness? And what resources are available at Rutgers for those who want to incorporate more active learning strategies into their classrooms? This piece will provide some answers to those questions.
What is Active Learning?
There’s little consensus in the education literature on a concrete, self-contained definition of active learning – or of lecturing for that matter, as Hora (2014) points out. It tends to follow the paradigm of “I know it when I see it.” In most instances, however, teaching methods that involve student participation during class time outside of taking notes or listening to the instructor tend to be those considered “active.”
Even without a comprehensive definition of active learning, one can discuss some of the many forms it can take. The active learning spectrum is wide, with options for every type of class. Active learning can be used by the most hesitant educators looking for a small activity to incorporate into their lectures, staunch supporters eager to expand its use, and everyone in between. The American Mathematics Society has an article summarizing many of these options. Though the intended audience is Mathematicians, much of the content of the article is applicable to other fields. For more information and ideas on types of active learning, the challenges to implementation, and resources at Rutgers, check out the teaching tools from the Rutgers Active Learning Community or see Resources below.
Making the Case for Active Learning
Like any new teaching method, active learning needs to be scrutinized for its effect on student learning outcomes. Thankfully, there is a mountain of educational literature studying exactly this. Some examples include Prince’s 2013 literature review and McCarthy and Anderson’s (2000) study of role-playing in History and Political Science. Of particular note is the meta-analysis in Freeman et. al. (2014). In this study, the authors analyzed hundreds of research projects which compare active learning to traditional lecture in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) courses. The results are dramatic, and they are best illustrated by the oft-quoted line on page 4 of the article:
“If the experiments analyzed here had been conducted as randomized controlled trials of medical interventions, they may have been stopped for benefit—meaning that enrolling patients in the control condition might be discontinued because the treatment being tested was clearly more beneficial. ” (Freeman et. al., 2014 page 4)
Resources for Active Learning
Excited to give active learning a try, but don’t know where to start? Have you used active learning already and want some fresh ideas to incorporate into your teaching? Here’s a few resources at Rutgers that may help.
TAPTalk 