Introduction to Active-Learning Techniques

Christian Mercat

Abstract In this chapter we do a brief state-of-the-art of the known active-learning

techniques.

Christian Mercat, Université Claude Bernard, Lyon 1, e-mail: christian.mercat@univ-lyon

1.fr

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Chapter 1
Active Learning Methodologies: a survey

Introduced in the nineties, active learning methodologies aim at giving responsibility

to the student of his/her own meaningful learning, engaging him/her in meaningful
learning challenges that require higher-order thinking such as analysis, synthesis
and evaluation. Faced with massification of higher education, involving a more
heterogeneous audience and a shortening of the life cycle of technologies, higher
education had to reform itself. Traditional teaching methodologies of massive quiet
amphitheater lectures where teacher is the only source of knowledge and students
are passive, was in crisis. Indeed, students not only need to acquire knowledge
but rather competencies, especially higher order thinking skills. And this shift, in
order to gain deeper learning rather than shallow surface knowledge, requires more
engagement, contribution and participation. Analysis of case studies, discussions,
synthesis require finer applications of knowledge on the part of students, but as well
more guidance on the part of instructors.
After thirty years of evolution, Active Learning has stabilised. The informal net-
work Active Learning in Engineering Education (ALE)[79], founded in 2001, is the
meeting place of practitioners, stressing that political organisations, like UNESCO,
or accreditation boards such as SEFI, ABET and ENAEE recommend AL in en-
gineering curricula. It is no longer seen as yet another educational fad that will
disappear without trace, but, although it has proven its benefits, it is not yet widely
adopted in Engineering courses. As Prince states, Some of the evidence for active
learning is compelling and should stimulate faculty to think about teaching and
learning in nontraditional ways. So there is no magic wand but some improvement
and joy in teaching and learning can be found in the Active Learning approach, so
let’s go through the different active methodologies and their features.

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0.1 Main features

We list here the main incentives to use active methodologies in your class before
studying in more details how they are put into action in different strategies and their
actual proven effects.
Active Learning is a student centered instruction approach rather than focusing
on content alone. It is particularly interesting for engineering studies where team
skills and life-long learning mindset are paramount.
The first surface interest of active methodologies is to get students attention in
order to increase their motivation. Changing the rules, introducing novelties, using
technology, can help for a while catching students’ attention. But this has to be
clearly for the benefit of learning and take into account students. Then it can lead
to an improved attitude and perception of the field by students, yielding engagement
and accountability in a meaningful learning.
Active Learning has its roots in constructivism where knowledge is gradually
constructed. Showing respect to students relies first in knowing their prior knowledge
and allowing them to build on top of it, scaffolding from an existing solid base rather
than on the sand of dreamed up alleged prerequisites. Misconceptions should not be
left unattended, dismissed or scorned at but should rather be positively identified and
openly addressed. Active methodology is used to assess your students in a trusted
environment where making mistakes, not knowing or not understanding something
is a recognized part of the learning process.
Based on this, most learning is viewed not as simply knowledge which is passively
acquired but rather as problem solving skills that deepens students’ understanding
of concepts as tools to solve problems, individually or in group. Students then
study for meaning rather than mere recall. Hence, although theory is needed to
clarify concepts, and abstraction to bring to light unifying perspective on seemingly
unrelated phenomena, applications ought to be brought to center stage, with some
occasional relevance to realistic professional context such as genuine case studies.
But it has to be noted that for this approach to work, tutors have to sufficiently direct
and master their subject: Casual self-directed learning and shallow foundations of
factual professional knowledge on the part of non expert tutors is detrimental to the
Problem-Based-Learning approach.
Collective phases, with communication, synthesis and decision making opportu-
nities, develop critical thinking, collaborative, cooperative and interpersonal skills,
while maintaining individual responsibility and accountability in learning.
But success in solving a problem might not lead to learning. Learning only occurs
if the underlying unifying theory is understood and internalized. Assessing this at
different scales in time and depth is paramount. Assessments are manyfold, through
final exams of course but as well portfolio, projects and assignments; they can be
individual or collective, shallow or deep, immediate or elaborate, oral or written,
summative (exercises get marks that are summed up into a grade) or formative (to
know whether a subject is mastered or should be reviewed again). Assessment should
lead to a positive attitude and healthy working habits rather than last minute rush
revision.
 Introduction to Active-Learning Techniques 5

Different learning contexts yield different opportunities, like the size of the class
or groups therein, synchronous or asynchronous work, online or in presence... Small
groups are more flexible in terms of spatial organization. Building a set of like
minded students is important but it has to be disrupted from time to time in order to
vary perspectives and learning strategies.

0.2 Active Learning Methodologies

Flipped learning : Direct instruction happens outside the classroom. During class, “the educa-
tor guides students as they apply concepts and engage creatively in the subject
matter”[48, 75, 99, 124, 141]. Just-in-Time is one of many such strategies be-
longing to this trend, where students collect information to answer warm up
questions, handing their answers the day before class, allowing the instructor to
adapt the lesson accordingly.
eduScrum : Students are working in self-managing teams and making their learning visible.
The tutor (product owner) provides the what and why of the activity, the students
(team) decide the how, a captain therein leads the team, especially the review of
each student’s work. Regular retrospectives round up the work done, celebrate
achievements and identify improving venues[11].
Pause and Share : Teacher stops instruction for the students to pause and share their understand-
ing of the issue at stake. This has proven effective as a very minor change in
traditional lecture where students simply clarify their notes in small groups.
Think-Pair-Share : Students individually think for a while on the issue at stake, then discuss in
pair to confront and elaborate their thoughts and finally share their findings
with a larger group. Propose a complex enough problem that requires some
engagement. Leave sufficient time for students to elaborate, insist on particular
forms, such as containing the word because. Also called 1-2-All, this technique
simply formalizes a very well established teaching strategy.
Case Studies : Students are presented with a situation that they have to analyze. The teacher
introduces questions when the students need some impetus to keep producing
or simply to formatively assess students understanding of the content matter.
More and more complex case studies can be introduced as students get used
to working this way. Without burying the big picture into too many details, a
good case study should not have an obvious decisive answer and would require
additional information, connections and perspectives to be gathered by students
in order for the problem to be solved.
Jig-Saw : Students groups are presented related but different perspectives, say A, B, C, on
an issue. After letting them work for some time on a given perspective, groups
are dissolved and reassembled in another way mixing perspectives. These should
be understood as complementary and providing salient points of the same big
picture answer on the problem at stake.
Peer-Review : Assign students with one or two other students draft production to study. Then
discuss rules for non violent, constructive and supportive expression that create
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mutual confidence and trust. Distribute guiding reviewing questions, with key
elements or form to answer. In a second time, organize review, offering peer
feedback among students, preferably in written form, followed by brief oral 1-1
discussion. Allow room for revision or for an Author’s Chair or Hot Seating
session where one student’s work is the focus of attention of a whole group
and the author answers feedback. For lighter evaluation, a simpler peer review
process is the Two Stars and a Wish protocol where, in each production, two
good features should be pointed out and one wish expressed in order to enhance
the work.
Post-it Parade : An established classic of brain-storming put to educational use. Students
silently write on a post-it an idea, an example, a solution, a question to a given
problem. Many different variations exist, the core phases being the Kawakita Jiro
technique of individual thinking, collective sharing, clustering and final voting
or prioritising. On paper, it can take the form of the ABC Brainstorm, creating an
alphabetized list of words related to a question in order to get an overall picture
of students prior or retained knowledge. In Buzz Groups, the issue is discussed
in small groups for a few minutes then one idea from each group is shared and
written on the board. It is a more collective way to brainstorm.
Affinity Cluster : Grouping the production of a brainstorm by themes, as a List, Group, Label
activity. It is an interesting analysis challenge, to put items into consensual
sets and to name them. The clustering is done with students being assigned a
cardboard with an item written in it, moving around the class to discuss with
peers in order to convince some to join when they see a link or to split if a
sub-cluster seems more appropriate. In the debrief, students have to justify their
classification system.
Card Ranking In a wealth of items, each group prioritises them by selecting the five most
important ones and share this list with the class, justifying it. Repeat until
collective agreement. Some variations names include Diamond Ranking and
Ideas Funnel. A simpler version is to tag items with Plus, Minus and Interesting
dots, whether individually or as a group.
Dotmocracy : When a matter raises several viewpoints, lay them on the wall in different
places and have students vote for their favorites with dots (stickers, checkmarks)
in order to have a visual clue regarding the distribution of opinions, multivoting
with equal or ranked dots such as Plus, Minus and Interesting dots. Discuss and
repeat[8].
Snowball : A cascading Think-Pair-Share where an agreement has to be reached when
pairing. Repeat until all the class tallies a common result. Restrict the time and
the number of items to agree upon like the three most important issues. As the
size grows, roles should be proposed such as spokesperson, time-keeper, scribe...
Respond, React, Reply : In small groups, each student responds to a challenging common prompt in a
short individual written form. Then this response is read aloud and shared with
the group, in turn. Secondly, each student in turn reacts in a constructive and
supportive way to each participant’s response in the group. A third round allows
every student to reply to the reactions.
 Introduction to Active-Learning Techniques 7

Memory Game : A task is described at the tutor’s desk. One student from each group can read
the sheet only once during thirty seconds then comes back to the group to
inform of the task and work on it. After a while, a second viewer from each
group can come and read the sheet for more details and so on. Memorizing and
explaining orally what is written as mathematics, understanding what is crucial
to remember compared to what is not so important, communicating with peers,
are skills worked in this method.
Round Table : Arranged in a circle, students, in a Go Around Robin, comment a complex
issue raised by the instructor without being interrupted or pass, if they wish not
to comment. It can be used as a check-out technique with a one phrase close.
Complete Turn Taking : Arrange a small group in a circle. A student asks a question (prepared before-
hand) aloud. The student to his/her left gives her/his thoughts for at most one
minute without being interrupted, finishing by “OK, I’m done”, then the next
person on the left follows the same protocol, in an additive and non repetitive
way. When three persons have shared their thoughts, the conversation is opened-
up to the rest of the circle for two minutes. Then the student to the left asks a
question and so on.
Fishbowl : A small group of volunteers is observed by the rest of the class tackling a given
task, commenting aloud their thoughts and actions. After a certain amount of
time, roles are exchanged, the inner ring joins the observers while a group from
the outer ring dives into the fishbowl, whether elaborating on the same activity
or being assigned a new activity.
Think Aloud : Students work in reader/listener pairs. When working on a task, the reader
thinks aloud and comment on what she/he is doing and thinking. Swap roles
when finished. Bringing the groups together, in front of the class, the instructor
does his/her own think aloud exercise and students are asked to add their own
thoughts and comments. Finally ask for a reflective discussion on what the
exercise brought along.
Each One Teach One : Every student works on an individual item alone (can be in a flipped context)
then moves around the classroom to share this work with fellow students and
to hear from their own, pointing out the difficult points. This can continue with
an Affinity Cluster activity where students should group along commonalities of
their work. This is an example of the broader Learning by Teaching trend.
Group Text Reading : A difficult text is split in 1-2 paragraph sections given to small groups. After
discussing for 15 minutes in groups, each group in turn presents their part of the
text. The instructor listens, writes down, corrects and adds to students responses
as needed. This might not be so easy to do on mathematical content, rather in
flipped context or on project preparation.
Debates : A certain matter is presented with two opposite viewpoints. Students are
assigned one side and have to prepare an argument in order to defend it. Ensues
a series of exchanges of arguments, one at a time, listened, analyzed and answered
by the other party. This can be based on the results of a Fact Finding Mission or
an Inquiry Challenge where arguments are gathered by students, structured by
scaffolding questions and hints.