Faculty Experiences In Active Learning

For decades, if not more, the pedagogy of choice for higher education was the lecture: students sat quietly in a large classroom, stared at the teacher while the teacher lectured about a subject some students knew nothing about. Students were discouraged from talking to fellow classmates and teachers, but were encouraged to take notes. However, with new technologies, including including computers, the internet, cell phones, smart devices, and social media, pedagogy has changed drastically. Students are now asked to multitask (listen, watch, read) not just take notes on the lecture. These changes require effective teaching pedagogy that engages multiple human technologies--speaking, hearing, responding, interacting, organizing, among others--a pedagogy that is called active learning. Faculty Experiences in Active Learning, a book authored by twenty-four faculty and administrators, works to ignite a culture of active learning in higher education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. UNC Charlotte has been working to become a national leader in active learning transformation since 2014. The University promotes the use of active learning pedagogy through a faculty community of practice called the Active Learning Academy and provides supporting spaces for active learning through construction and renovations of classrooms to be active learning centers. This book, authored by Active Learning Academy members, was written for higher education faculty and students planning to teach at the post-secondary level and is a guide for considering the diverse pathways that active learning can take based on student population, approach, discipline, and learning environment. The chapters in this book cover a range of topics on active learning: implementing logistics and strategies for getting started with active learning methods, using flipped classroom models, evaluating student engagement, addressing accessibility in active learning classrooms, and experimenting with adaptive academic technologies. Design patterns for planning active learning engagement in your classroom are provided along with examples of pitfalls that can occur with each activity and best practices for using activities successfully.

While Active Learning Classrooms, or ALCs, offer rich new environments for learning, they present many new challenges to faculty because, among other things, they eliminate the room’s central focal point and disrupt the conventional seating plan to which faculty and students have become accustomed.The importance of learning how to use these classrooms well and to capitalize on their special features is paramount. The potential they represent can be realized only when they facilitate improved learning outcomes and engage students in the learning process in a manner different from traditional classrooms and lecture halls.This book provides an introduction to ALCs, briefly covering their history and then synthesizing the research on these spaces to provide faculty with empirically based, practical guidance on how to use these unfamiliar spaces effectively. Among the questions this book addresses are:• How can instructors mitigate the apparent lack of a central focal point in the space?• What types of learning activities work well in the ALCs and take advantage of the affordances of the room?• How can teachers address familiar classroom-management challenges in these unfamiliar spaces?• If assessment and rapid feedback are critical in active learning, how do they work in a room filled with circular tables and no central focus point?• How do instructors balance group learning with the needs of the larger class?• How can students be held accountable when many will necessarily have their backs facing the instructor?• How can instructors evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching in these spaces?This book is intended for faculty preparing to teach in or already working in this new classroom environment; for administrators planning to create ALCs or experimenting with provisionally designed rooms; and for faculty developers helping teachers transition to using these new spaces.

Tips and techniques to build interactive learning into lecture classes Have you ever looked out across your students only to find them staring at their computers or smartphones rather than listening attentively to you? Have you ever wondered what you could do to encourage students to resist distractions and focus on the information you are presenting? Have you ever wished you could help students become active learners as they listen to you lecture? Interactive Lecturing is designed to help faculty members more effectively lecture. This practical resource addresses such pertinent questions as, “How can lecture presentations be more engaging?” “How can we help students learn actively during lecture instead of just sitting and passively listening the entire time?” Renowned authors Elizabeth F. Barkley and Claire H. Major provide practical tips on creating and delivering engaging lectures as well as concrete techniques to help teachers ensure students are active and fully engaged participants in the learning process before, during, and after lecture presentations. Research shows that most college faculty still rely predominantly on traditional lectures as their preferred teaching technique. However, research also underscores the fact that more students fail lecture-based courses than classes with active learning components. Interactive Lecturing combines engaging presentation tips with active learning techniques specifically chosen to help students learn as they listen to a lecture. It is a proven teaching and learning strategy that can be readily incorporated into every teacher’s methods. In addition to providing a synthesis of relevant, contemporary research and theory on lecturing as it relates to teaching and learning, this book features 53 tips on how to deliver engaging presentations and 32 techniques you can assign students to do to support their learning during your lecture. The tips and techniques can be used across instructional methods and academic disciplines both onsite (including small lectures and large lecture halls) as well as in online courses. This book is a focused, up-to-date resource that draws on collective wisdom from scholarship and practice. It will become a well-used and welcome addition for everyone dedicated to effective teaching in higher education.

Active learning occurs when a learning task can be related in a non-arbitrary manner to what the learner already knows and when there is a personal recognition of the links between concepts. The most important element of active learning is not so much in how information is presented, but how new information is integrated into an existing knowledge base. In order to successfully implement active learning into higher education, its effect on student engagement must be studied and considered. The Handbook of Research on Active Learning and Student Engagement in Higher Education focuses on assessing the effectiveness of active learning and constructivist teaching to promote student engagement and provides a wide range of strategies and frameworks to help educators and other practitioners examine the benefits, challenges, and opportunities for using active learning approaches to maximize student learning. Covering topics such as online learning environments and engagement approaches, this major reference work is ideal for academicians, practitioners, researchers, librarians, industry professionals, educators, and students.

Active Learning: A practical Guide for College Faculty offers everyday guidance for implementing and improving active learning in the college classroom. This collection of articles is appropriate for both the complete novice as well as the instructor who may have used active learning techniques before.

How can we structure class time efficiently? How can we explain and lecture effectively? How can we help students master content? How can we make learning more real and lasting?In this revised and greatly expanded 2nd edition of Inspiring Active Learning, educators Merrill Harmin and Melanie Toth provide answers to our fundamental teaching questions and show us how to transform our classrooms into communities of active, responsible learners. The authors present an array of research-based, teacher-tested strategies for managing our everyday responsibilities--from beginning a class to grading homework, from instructing large groups to promoting diligent seatwork, from motivating slackers to handling disrupters. These strategies focus on mutual respect, not bossiness; collaboration, not isolation; commitment to learning, not fear of failure; and the dignity of all, not praise or rewards for a few.Regardless of our level of experience or the grade or subject we teach, the active-learning approach helps us* Perform routine teaching tasks more easily.* Discover a higher level of teaching success and personal satisfaction.* Establish a class climate of full participation and cooperation.* Prepare engaging lessons that keep students productively involved.* Encourage students to work energetically, willingly, and intelligently each day.* Inspire all students, even the most challenging, to strive for excellence.With its detailed classroom examples and more than 250 practical strategies, Inspiring Active Learning is a comprehensive reference for solving almost any teaching problem.

The working model for "helping the learner to learn" presented in this book is relevant to any teaching context, but the focus here is on teaching in secondary and college science classrooms. Specifically, the goals of the text are to: *help secondary- and college-level science faculty examine and redefine their roles in the classroom; *define for science teachers a framework for thinking about active learning and the creation of an active learning environment; and *provide them with the assistance they need to begin building successful active learning environments in their classrooms. Active Learning in Secondary and College Science Classrooms: A Working Model for Helping the Learner to Learn is motivated by fundamental changes in education in response to perceptions that students are not adequately acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary to meet current educational and economic goals. The premise of this book is that active learning offers a highly effective approach to meeting the mandate for increased student knowledge, skills, and performance. It is a valuable resource for all teacher trainers in science education and high school and college science teachers.