When it comes to education, the most important thing to remember is that you study for you and you alone. Not for your parents, and, God forbid, not for your tutors. You study for yourself, and today responsibility for quality of your education belongs solely to you.
In 1991, Bonwell and Eison first brought up the concept of ‘active learning’. What are its main milestones? Collaborative work and team play between students and teachers, group discussions, analysis of case studies, co-learning, and, of course, academic writing. Sounds pretty similar to what you’re doing both inside and outside the classroom? Well, that’s pretty much it!
According to the pyramid you see below, there are two types of learning. First, passive, includes such activities as reading, listening and sensory perceiving. Second, active, includes speaking, writing and oral classroom exercises.
Image was taken from the The Center for Teaching and Learning
As you see, all you do in a classroom and at home is done for a very clear reason. To educate you in a comprehensive and effective manner making you a well-rounded person in future. That’s why taking the most out of active learning is what you should really focus on.
In-class active learning ideas
General discussion. The essential of any in-class activity, general discussion is fit for any audience (online or in-class) and any number of students to participate in. To ace a general discussion, take an active part in a teacher-classroom-you dialogue and simply express your opinions to then hear opinions of others.
Think-pair-share. Before getting down to learning new material, a teacher might ask the classroom to revise the material learnt on a previous lesson. That’s why you should be well-prepared for every lesson.
Learning cell. Time for some work in groups! As a student, you’ll have to fetch something like 10 questions regarding a topic. As a teacher, you’ll be picking students to make a question and then pick a student to answer. Last student answering a question is the one to make his or her own question.
Debates. Classroom will be divided in two opposing parties. Students in both camps will have to prepare pros or cons regarding a topic of today’s lesson and then enter into debates with a student from an opponent camp. Debate is one of the greatest ways to teach public speaking and master the art of persuasion.
How to exercise active learning outside the classroom
Written assignments. Most student treat essays like a superfluous part of workload. But that’s so untrue! A wise student knows that the best way to reinforce knowledge in a topic is writing everything down, for example in a form of an essay.
Blogging. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram – these are amazing places to share your ideas on a topic, engage into a conversation with a subject-savvy person and build up a stronger awareness in the field. Checking out a couple of funny cat videos or gifs would also be nice!
Topical video content. Seems like today everyone loves watching videos on YouTube, so why not put this habit to some practical use? Watching videos in a topic will help make gained knowledge solid. Reading a textbook or how-to is great, but watching someone doing it step by step is even greater.
Learning by teaching. Find a classmate who’s not very good in a topic and try to be a lecturer for a while. Aim to help a fellow classmate understand the material better, making your own expertise more profound in the process.
To cut a long story short, active learning is the foundation of modern educational process. Students must be interested in committing to active learning as well, as it’s the quality of education that depends on it.
David Sia graduated from the University of West Los Angeles in Inglewood and holds master’s degree in law. Now, he works as a journalist and travel around East Europe.