Search Results for active learning

Empowered Learning: History, Collaboratively

by Jesse Cordes Selbin, English
I believe that education functions best when students are not merely passive recipients, but collaborative creators, of knowledge. To that end, I designed an ongoing assignment wherein students used online software to contribute to a collective historical timeline of the nineteenth century…The function of the timeline was primarily informational: it was intended to give a deeper understanding of a historical era. But its crucial secondary function was to ask students to reconceptualize their own role as creators and perpetrators of historical narrative.

Implementing the Scientific Learning Cycle in the Confines of a Classroom

by Carolyn Sparrey, Mechanical Engineering
Due to the restrictions of the classroom I could not simply bring in tissue for the students to experiment with. Rather, I needed something tissue-like but without the mess and, because I was supplying the materials myself, at minimal cost. The solution was chewing gum.

Conquering ‘Forty Percent of the Grade’: Interactive Strategies for Helping Students Prepare for Comprehensive Final Exams

by Wendy Sinek, Political Science
I have my students play “Political Challenge,” an interactive game that I designed…During the course of the game, teams debate possible approaches to a question, and then explain the material in their own words in order to earn points. Harder questions are not only worth more points, they also require more active participation, such as staging a mini role-play or debate.

A New Approach to Teaching and Learning

by Timothy Randazzo, Ethnic Studies
Last summer I made the decision to alter my approach to teaching radically, and the result was the highest level of analytical thinking and enthusiasm among my students that I have ever seen in my six years of teaching…I decided upon three principles to guide my formulation of class activities and assignments: 1) there will be no lectures, 2) there will be no exams, and 3) whenever possible, student work will be reintegrated into the class, rather than being just “for the instructor.”

Learning by Doing: Using Simulations to Teach Political Science

by David Radwin, Political Science
Learning by doing has a long history in educational theory, even if it is uncommon in practice…The analysis and rearrangement of facts which is indispensable to the growth of knowledge and power of explanation and right classification cannot be attained purely mentally-just inside the head…The challenge for undergraduate education is how to create activities, within the constraints of the university setting, that challenge students to discover answers on their own.

Transforming Quizzes into Teaching and Learning Tools

by Jennifer Powell, Molecular and Cell Biology
To address my goal of encouraging the students to take the quizzes seriously so they would be useful to everyone as a tool to evaluate their progress in the course, I developed a quiz strategy for my discussion section…Rather than just telling them the [quiz] answers, I asked volunteers to come up to the chalkboard and write their answers for the rest of the class.