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Evidence of the efficacy of Active Learning

Created by Mark Morton (University of Waterloo) on July 17, 2006

One of the faculty members at my university teaches large classes of students (in Accounting and Management), and he's eager to implement Active Learning into these courses. An obvious challenge, however, is that the students themselves tend to be skeptical of Active Learning; they are familiar with the Sage on the Stage approach, and thus they are often reluctant to embrace a teaching strategy that is not a straight lecture. To help address this challenge, I've offered to attend the instructor's course (at the beginning of the term) with a view to making a presentation (and facilitating a discussion or debate) about Active Learning. Essentially, I want to persuade the students that Active Learning can improve their performance, and therefore they should welcome their instructor's Active Learning teaching strategies. In preparation for this, I reviewed a number of studies of the efficacy of Active Learning, extracted the most salient passages, and pulled them together into a single document. That document is attached. If you have any other suggestions of studies (in peer-reviewed journals) that affirm the efficacy of Active Learning, please let me (and others) know by posting a comment. -- Mark

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You wrote, "I want to
Submitted by Joe Sanchez (University of Texas at Austin) on July 20, 2006 - 1:39pm.

You wrote, "I want to persuade the students that Active Learning can improve their performance, and therefore they should welcome their instructor's Active Learning teaching strategies."Rather than telling them about the benefits of active learning wouldn't letting them experience active learning be a better approach? Teaching a class of non-educators about the principles of Active learning or even the benefits of Al would not be helpful UNLESS it was one of the goals of the class. My guess is the students will not find the information relevant which will lead to low motivation and poor performance. I think a better approach is to design a lesson with the instructor incorporating his current course content in an Active Learning session. If the instructor were not ready to do this I would offer to co-teach or even lead the session. Look to Keller's ARCS model as a guide for motivation when you are attempting new ideas in a class,A- AttentionR- Relevance C - ConfidenceS- SatisfactionYou also said, " (students) are reluctant to embrace a teaching strategy that is not a straight lecture."I find the opposite true, and so would most practitioners and researchers that use Active learning. I think students are reluctant to accept Active learning when it is done poorly or when it is superficial. Great post, thanks for sharing your article too!joe

Hi, Joe -- Thanks for taking
Submitted by Mark Morton (University of Waterloo) on July 20, 2006 - 2:55pm.

Hi, Joe -- Thanks for taking time to comment, and for making several really good suggestions. I totally agree that just simply telling students about the virtues of Active Learning won't, in itself, do the trick; it has to be followed up (as you say) with the instructor implementing Active Learning into his or her course. In this case, the Instructor I'm working with already does implement a lot of Active Learning strategies (and in fact has received an "Award for Innovation" for his efforts: http://lt3.uwaterloo.ca/spotlights/spotlight_apr05.html), and his students clearly respond well to his efforts). However, I still think that educating students about the rationale for Active Learning can make them more receptive, or receptive sooner, to learning activities that they might initially find unfamiliar or even "quirky". In other words, why not "prime the pump" by showing them some of the evidence about the efficacy of Active Learning? And after showing them that evidence, I think it would be really useful to engage them in a discussion or debate about the virtues of the traditional lecture versus more "active" approaches. I think the best way to win students over to Active Learning is to give them the evidence, and then let them experience it (as you suggested) in an ongoing way. Thanks again for commenting! Mark

Mark, if you are not already
Submitted by Anonymous on July 31, 2006 - 1:14pm.

Mark, if you are not already familiar with these studies they should be useful:Smith, K.A., Sheppard, S.D., Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R.T., Pedagogies of Engagement: Classroom-Based Practices. Journal of Engineering. Education, 2005, January, pp.87-101. Felder R.M., Brent, R., FAQs, Chemical Engineering Education, Vol.33, No.1, 1999, pp. 32- 33. **********************************************************************************************You may also find useful Felder's webpage and FAQ 2 with answers to common reservations about AL, :http://www.ncsu.edu/felder-public/Columns/FAQs-2.htmlFelder was involved in a longitudinal study at one stage which could also be useful although I don't have a reference to hand.

Hi, Bill -- Thanks for the
Submitted by Mark Morton (University of Waterloo) on August 16, 2006 - 12:55pm.

Hi, Bill -- Thanks for the references to those other articles and webpages. After I take a look at them, I'll update the document I created, and re-attach it to my original post. Best wishes, Mark
 
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