LINDA HODGES: Active learning differs
from what we view as traditional in that it's
an approach in class that's sort of two-way instead of one-way.
Classically, lecture is the faculty member
sharing their knowledge, in some ways, their expertise
and their ways of thinking with a class,
but without receiving anything back
from the students as to whether the students are understanding
that, or student perspective.
And also, the traditional approaches
don't allow time in class for students
to actually process some of these ideas.
And we know that that's critical.
So active learning is a moment, an activity,
an approach that you take in class
that allows students time to process information, new ideas,
so that they can move it out of their working memory
and into more lasting memory.
And it's a moment when hopefully, they
are receiving some feedback on their understanding of what you
have dealt with to this point.
And you're getting feedback from them
on whether they understand what's going forward.
And I also like to say that it can be a moment where you give
them some deliberate practice in some skills of the discipline,
right there at the moment where you're there
with your experience to help them,
instead of relying so often, as we do,
of having them really work on difficult ideas
and processing and so forth at home by themselves,
or at best with some students.
So active learning is a time when you give students
something to do that's course-related,
that's related to a goal that you have for the course, that
gets them involved and thinking about that idea
and doing something with it, and hopefully receiving
some feedback on that.
So if faculty are interested in exploring more active learning,
they need to reach out, I think, to their colleagues
in the teaching learning centers or colleagues
in the department that seem like-minded, and find
a way in that can start small because we know that even
though certain sorts of active learning strategies
work better if done well, even small things can be
very productive in the class.
And as I mention frequently, I consider,
for example, the use of these clickers,
these handheld remote devices, as an entree drug
to active learning because they're fairly low risk.
You can interact with students and have students interact
with each other, and you can gather feedback
from students with these clickers,
without you as a person having to do
a lot of interaction or mediation
among those interactions.
And so I think that helps.
You've got to lower the risk associated with the activity.
You've also, of course, got to make
it acceptable to the administrative hierarchy,
in the tenure promotion, hiring retention processes
at the university, too.
We're not going to get acceptance
as long as time you spend teaching
isn't valued in that regard.
But starting simply, and trying some technique
and getting some success, we know
from the literature on how you diffuse an innovation
because you start small, you get a success,
and you build on that.
And there has to be some immediate value added back
to you.