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This document discusses strategies for incorporating active learning in university classrooms. It describes active learning as creating activities where student participation and understanding are central. The document then lists and explains different active learning techniques, including questioning techniques, small group work, whole class involvement exercises, and reading/writing assignments. It concludes by explaining how one active learning strategy - questioning techniques - could help the author develop more effective discussion questions for their lab sessions by using different question types (remembering, applying, evaluating) to vary question formats.

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92 views1 page

Reading Summary 2

This document discusses strategies for incorporating active learning in university classrooms. It describes active learning as creating activities where student participation and understanding are central. The document then lists and explains different active learning techniques, including questioning techniques, small group work, whole class involvement exercises, and reading/writing assignments. It concludes by explaining how one active learning strategy - questioning techniques - could help the author develop more effective discussion questions for their lab sessions by using different question types (remembering, applying, evaluating) to vary question formats.

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Aphra Sutherland

Science 511
January 29, 2020
Word count: 571
Classroom Activities for Active Learning
Classroom Activities for Active Learning briefly elucidates some of the benefits of
integrating learning activities beyond the classic lecture into university classrooms. The article is
primarily a list of specific strategies used to incorporate active learning into learning spaces,
where active learning refers to creating activities were student takeaway is paramount and
student participation is naturally incorporated. Active learning is intended to assist students with
program motivation, material understanding, and show instructors areas of class weakness.
The first category of active learning activities is Questioning Techniques. Questions may
be posed in three ways: remembering, applying, and evaluating, which build from knowledge
(remembering) to making and defending judgement calls (evaluating). Each of these levels
builds on top of each other in order to facilitate deeper understanding. The article addresses
participation related issues with traditional question asking formats and suggests, among other
strategies, the use of technology systems such as clickers to allow for a less intimidating form of
participation. Another format for active learning is Small Groups. The article provides three
examples of how small groups can be utilized for student involvement, including the pair-share
technique, where students are given time to consider an answer before discussing it one on one.
Educational strategies that involve discussion, as opposed to lectures, have been demonstrated to
more effectively improve problem solving skills, making small group work an important
educational tool. A third way to incorporate active learning fits under the category of Whole
Class Involvement. This can appear as whole class debates where the class splits up to argue
sides of an issue, role-playing where the class takes on roles of people in scenarios, or lecture
checks, where the instructor periodically ensures that the class understands the concepts by
asking a question and asking students to defend their answers until the class agrees. The final
active learning technique is Reading and Writing Exercises. The primary goal of reading and
writing exercises is to develop close reading strategies or to have students learn by summarizing
in their own words.
The active learning concept of questioning techniques relates well to one of my own
semester goals, which was to develop techniques for asking effective discussion questions during
the lab practicums that aren’t too open ended (making them unfocussed and confusing) but also
are not closed-ended question that that fail to elicit any discussion. Specifically, this active
learning technique breaks down three types of questions: remembering, applying, and evaluating
questions. This could be useful in developing question formats, which was the deliverable
portion of my goal. These categories will give me useful parameters to develop my questions
strategically. I plan to use this over this week, as I develop facilitation questions for my second
lab session. This week, one of our main tasks will be to work with students on how to
appropriately reference information in their lab notebooks. A question such as, “what do you
think you should look for when considering using a reliable scientific reference” seems to fit best
as an evaluation style question and might be too broad for a lab setting. It might be more
appropriate to ask what reference they’ve used during the lab and ask what about the resource
made them feel that it was a good reference, which would be more of an application question.
This process will allow me to better refine discussion questions.

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