The Creative Classroom:
Engaging Student Understanding Through Active Learning Techniques
December 6, 2016 | Writing Across the Curriculum Program | New York City College of Technology
Presented by Jared R. Pike
What is Active Learning?
“Active learning is generally defined as any instructional method that engages students in the learning process. In short, active learning requires students to do meaningful learning activities and think about what they are doing [1]. While this definition could include traditional activities such as homework, in practice active learning refers to activities that are introduced into the classroom. The core elements of active learning are student activity and engagement in the learning process. Active learning is often contrasted to the traditional lecture where students passively receive information from the instructor.” (Prince 2004)
Strategies for Active Learning
1. Be specific in your assignment. Provide written instructions.
2. Be transparent about the function of the activity. How does it relate to your course and lesson objectives?
3. Be mindful of time and length of activity components.
4. Provide models.
5. Ensure students have necessary technology and can easily seek help.
6. Make activities specific to your field/class – it’s your creative classroom.
7. Know that you don’t have to change the whole class at once. Try one thing at a time until you are comfortable with new methods of teaching.
Sample Active Learning Activities
NOTE: There is no single activity that can activate student learning, nor is there one “perfect” way to transition your classroom from a traditional style to a more active style. It is often an experiment in teaching in which the teacher learns about their own pedagogy while students learn the content. It is sometimes messy—and that’s OK! START SMALL AND BE KIND AND FORGIVING WITH YOURSELF!
Below are some sample activities you may find inspiring as you rethink your course. They have been collected from CITY TECH Faculty and W.A.C. Fellows past and present.
No-Tech Strategies
Concept Maps:
Concept mapping, also called mind mapping, helps students synthesize and organize their knowledge. Students can work solo or in groups construct the concept map and you may consider making it more active by having them make each box movable so they can question and revise as they go. This exercise can be done completely with pen and paper, or there are several websites, such as MINDOMO (https://www.mindomo.com/) that provide digital spaces for concept mapping.
Debate:
To Help Students Learn to Evaluate the Relative Strength of Competing Arguments/Ideas
• Sample Prompt:
“We have read about four different approaches to the design of a digital data-recording device for Company X’s portable heart defibrillator. Your group will advocate for approach #n. Begin by summarizing the approach, then come up with at least three pros AND three cons. Finally, imagine you have to pitch your approach to Company X alongside the other three approaches. Be prepared to promote your approach and argue its merits against others.”
• You could also use these ideas to vary the debate model:
• Have students work in groups to take a position and defend it to the group
• Have students work in groups to find evidence to support a particular argument and explain to class
• Have students work in groups to evaluate relative strength of evidence that you provide and explain to class
Brainstorming:
Break up your lecture of discussion by asking students to generate a list of related ideas, concepts, people, Book titles, or [insert whatever is relevant to the moment in your lecture here]. Write these ideas on the board and try to incorporate the student generated ideas as you continue the lesson. Even the simple act of stopping the lecture and engaging the students in a generative brainstorming shifts the learning environment and allows the students to become active in their own learning process.
Graffiti:
Similar in nature to the brainstorming activity, ask students to take some time to reflect on relevant material for that day’s lesson. It could be a reading from homework, an image, a piece of primary evidence, a writing prompt you have given, the mini-lecture you just gave, or just about anything. After you have given them time to reflect, preferably with some form of writing, ask your students to go to the blackboard and write the most impactful sentence from the novel -OR- draw an image that captures the way they feel about philosophical concept -OR- write a sentence that summarizes the day’s lesson –OR- … (I think you get the picture now). Their graffiti becomes the basis of the following discussion time.
Snowball Questions:
A “snowball” activity is a good icebreaker. One way to implement the activity is to have students write a question on a sheet of paper and crumple it up. Students then throw their “snowballs” into the center of the room. Each student then randomly chooses a snowball from the pile, answers the questions, crumples the paper up again, and throws the snowball back into the center of the room. Lastly, have students pick snowballs and read the question and answer. This activity can be performed at the beginning and again at the end of the class. Based on the knowledge acquired during the lecture, students can take another turn choosing and answering the original snowball questions.
Real-world Word Problems:
In Math: Using the following graph of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as measured by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s Mauna Loa Observatory from 1958 to 2008, model the data (find an equation that connects the horizontal axis and the vertical axis). Then, use your model to extrapolate (predict) what the carbon dioxide level will be in a few decades. Explain your math in a 2-page report you will deliver to the EPA .
Image source: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration
(adapted from Murray Bourne’s Earth Killer: composite trigonometry co2 graph)
No-Tech Game Idea:
Frankenstein BINGO! (kindly provided by Rebecca Devers)
Instructions:
Step One: You’ve already produced the BINGO cards for the game. The moderator holds 60 quotations from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Step Two: Assemble into teams. Make sure you all have the same BINGO cards. Name your team.
Step Three: When the moderator reads a quotation, work with your team to determine if you can use it to help you fill your bingo card. Determine if it represents a theme that appears across the top row of your card. If so, then determine which other element of fiction it represents. For example, a quotation that describes the appearance of M. Krempe and the ways in which that appearance led Victor to judge him would describe the theme of APPEARANCE and the element of CHARACTERIZATION. This constitutes a “match.”
Step Four: If you have a “match,” write the number of the quotation in the box where the appropriate column and row meet. Get all of one column, all of one row, or an entire diagonal in either direction, and YOU’VE GOT A BINGO! Call it out!
Step Five: Defend your readings of the quotations to the rest of the class. If they don’t agree that quotation 11A falls into the categories you’ve assigned it, your team will have to start over from scratch. If they do agree with your readings, YOUR ENTIRE TEAM EARNS 10 EXTRA CREDIT POINTS.
[SEE BINGO CARD ON FOLLOWING PAGE]
Frankenstein Bingo Card
Themes àCARD A / What it means to be human / Companionship / Storytelling / Technology, Science, and Responsibility / Appearance
Characterization
Style /
POV / BINGO!
Plot
Setting
Higher Tech Activities:
Students Blogs
Blogging about course material helps students engage with course concepts while also developing their writing digital citizenship skills. Here at CITY TECH the OpenLAB provides an excellent platform for building a course that incorporates student blogging. The OpenLAB Community can provide you with tech support and training if you are unsure about how to navigate and use the platform. Here are some sample course blogs:
: https://blsciblogs.baruch.cuny.edu/msc1003cohen/elements-entries/
http://blsciblogs.baruch.cuny.edu/msc1003cohen/2012/11/18/nationalism/
http://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/beinginbrooklynf2013/
Audio and Video:
Incorporating audio and video into a lecture helps shift the learning environment for the students but still remains fairly passive. HOWEVER, if there are videos such a TEDtalks, KahnAcademy lessons, Lynda.com tutorials, or YouTube videos (etc.) that help teach our course content, consider “flipping” your classroom. Have the students watch the video outside of class and spend class time on activities that reinforce the core concepts. A flipped classroom can work particularly well if you create videos of your own lectures as the homework and free up class time for deeper and more active engagement. NOTE: Flipping the classroom in this way requires significant prep work as you film (or gather) the audio and video materials you expect your students to engage with. Start small.
Various Applications and Tools for Online Learning Activities:
The following websites provide platforms for various types of digital engagement and learning. Browse through them and see if anything sparks your imagination. Also ask around to see if your colleagues are using a particular platforms for digital engagement:
UKoment: http://www.ukoment.com
CommentPress: http://futureofthebook.org/commentpress/about-commentpress/
Voices Thread: https://voicethread.com
Omeka: http://omeka.org/ (example: http://bgccraftartdesign.org/)
OpenLAB: http://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/
Jeopardy templates:
Jeopardy style games work well as a review game or as a pre-course/pre-unit survey to test student’s current knowledge. While jeopardy can be a no-tech game with a game board built out of pieces of paper or index cards, these templates provide easy-to-use PowerPoint based digital versions:
Basic: http://www.edtechnetwork.com/powerpoint.html
For science/math: http://www.acrotex.net/games_index.php?lang=en
Any questions? Feel free to contact:
Jared R. Pike
Works Cited and Further Reading
Emerson, Tisha L. N., and Beck A. Taylor. 2004. “Comparing Student Achievement Across Experimental and Lecture-Oriented Sections of a Principles of Microeconomics Course.” Southern Economic Journal 70: 672–93.
Garner, R. L. 2006. “Humor in Pedagogy: How Ha-ha Can Lead to Aha!” College Teaching 54(1): 177-80.
Gee, James Paul. 2003. What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Knight, Jennifer K., and William B. Wood. 2005. “Teaching More by Lecturing Less.” Cell Biology Education 4: 298–310.
Prince, Michael. 2004. “Does Active Learning Work? A Review of the Research.” Journal of Engineering Education 93: 223–31.
Robinson, Carole F., and Peter J. Kakela. 2006. “Creating a Space to Learn: A Classroom of Fun, Interaction, and Trust.” College Teaching 54: 202–06.
For more information about the neuroscience of learning and/or an online tutorial course on pedagogical strategies for teaching in Higher Education, check out the relevant videos on Lynda.com. Your New York Public Library card will grant you free access to this impressive catalogue of tutorials ranging from basic WordPress and Photoshop to advanced accounting and pedagogy. Navigate through the NYPL databases for access. This is a valuable resource for you and your students.
For more information about using technology in the classroom check out the Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy (http://jitp.commons.gc.cuny.edu/ ) or EdTech Magazine (www.edtechmagazine.com). If you are on twitter you can find lots of tips and tricks for incorporating technology as a means to engage your students by searching #EdTech. For an in-depthstudy of the CUNY student body see Maura Smale and Mariana Regalado’s “Commuter Students Using Technology” http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/commuter-students-using-technology
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