You are here:

Prepare for active learning

As an educator you wear many hats and play various roles when it comes to educating your students. As you implement active learning strategies, you will find that your role moves from the delivery of information to a facilitator, mentor, guide and designer.

You need to consider not only what content or learning outcomes are important for the unit, but also how students will best learn them. When planning your unit you will need to design activities or resources that will enable students to take a more active approach to learning. This means getting students to reflect, question, hypothesise, evaluate and make connections between ideas and experiences and knowledge of others.

As you can’t control all the variables that may affect learning, it is important to have a variety of strategies and techniques under your belt to build engagement that also meets your and the students' learning requirements.

Teaching in a higher education context requires you to not only have content knowledge expertise, but also pedagogical content knowledge (Zepke, 2013). This means that you are responsible for the course content but also coordinating the learning environment.
Students also play an important role in learning the content and engaging with the content through the designed activities. Part of your role is to keep communication open with your students and get feedback on the learning process so that you can adapt your teaching and resources to meet the needs of students and optimise the learning experience.
As you shift from the delivery of information to active learning, students need to adapt their mindset. It helps to have a conversation with students early on in the unit to get them to think about the expectations for their learning and how they can take more ownership.
Educate students and guide them to take on a more active role, by explaining what that looks like and what you expect from them. By reminding students of the rationale for the activities you have designed and the role they play in learning, you may also help avoid potential disengagement.
'Engagement is simultaneously about students’ investment in educational activities and also about the intentional structuring and facilitation of students’ involvement in enriching learning experiences’ (Kinzie, 2010: 140).
Think how students might be motivated and how you can build their sense of competence, autonomy and belonging. Integrating accountability by setting up clear expectations and actionable tasks that you will take the time to review and provide feedback on will demonstrate to students that you are holding them accountable for their learning and participation. This enables students to feel a sense of achievement and increases their engagement.
Students need challenge and safety to take academic risks, otherwise they will resist or disengage to protect themselves. One way of creating a safe environment is by building relationships with your students, being approachable, respectful and sensitive to students' learning needs. This in turn will lead to students feeling valued and more committed to working harder.
In addition, creating a safe space where students can also interact with their peers without fear of being judged harshly will also add to a better quality of ongoing interaction between students. You can do this by setting up guidelines for these types of interactions and moderating discussions to ensure students remain positive and professional with their peers.
Remember that relationship dynamics are complex and there is no one size fits all approach. Each cohort may require different strategies to help them engage in active learning.
Reinforcement means the student needs time and multiple opportunities to master new knowledge and skills. Students practice using the content during – and after – the learning event. The manner in which students practice will help them transfer their understanding from the point of learning, to their contexts outside of the classroom (work, home, assessment). Design into the unit different activities, scenarios and question types for students to apply their knowledge to, thus developing mastery. See Design active learning for ideas on how to do this.

Your feedback matters

Let us know how we can improve this resource.

Next: Employ Teaching Associates (TAs) effectively

Draw inspiration

Integrating Science and Practice - iSAP

This case study example, called iSAP - integrating Science And Practice, is an experientially oriented online program that supports student centred learning, authentic assessment and the delivery of feedback at scale.

Digital me in online learning

Social presence is built by a student to be seen as real by others and that makes their digital identity. How can we help students build these online identities?

Work readiness through Clinical Practice Labs in Social Work

In the Master of Social Work, they introduced simulations using professional actors as part of the Objective Structured Clinical Examination which was a 10-minute interview with a simulated client in a range of diverse settings.

Learning and Teaching: Teach HQ