Facilitate active learning
Including active learning strategies can be as simple as posing the right questions and giving students time to reflect and respond, or it may shape the structure of an entire lesson or unit of learning. How you deliver this content is an important consideration when planning an engaging and successful active learning task.
The size and nature of the learning environment you’re in (synchronous or asynchronous) are also important considerations when facilitating active learning. Below are some strategies you can consider when planning and facilitating active learning in synchronous environments.
Strategies for facilitating a synchronous class
Any type of learning that occurs in real-time at a scheduled event, whether online or in-person is considered synchronous. It’s important to reduce the amount of lengthy blocks of content when delivering presentations synchronously, and break it up at least every 7-15 minutes with different activities, as this keeps students actively engaged in the learning process (Lumpkin, 2017). This also provides opportunities to build community amongst your cohort.
The size of your synchronous class is important to consider, as some activities are easily scaled to factor in large numbers of students, whereas other more involved activities may be better utilised in smaller groups or only when you have enough Teaching Associates. In any situation, you will need to provide:
- clear and visible instructions
- ongoing guidance
- well structured tasks
- learning goals linked clearly at the beginning so the students see relevance.
Small class facilitation
Small group classes provide a more flexible environment for running activities that incorporate movement, interactivity and direct involvement by the teaching staff. Transition time when moving between activities or from instruction to task engagement is reduced, and students will be able to develop more positive working relationships and spend more time collaborating.
While synchronous learning environments lend themselves to developing positive social and emotional connection between students, they do not automatically generate this connectedness. It must be actively encouraged and built in by educators, which can take some advance planning.
Large class facilitation
Large classes can sometimes feel impersonal and difficult to engage students. However there are some key strategies that you could use to create a more personal, active and conversational feeling.
- Use your TAs to support the large class discussions and activities.
- Create peer-to-peer activities where students can discuss and support each other.
- Break up the session to have in-class discussions.
- Incorporate educational technologies that can help facilitate the class activities and discussions.
- Use warm-up activities or icebreakers to get students feeling comfortable working together.
- Incorporate some of the active learning strategies for some ideas of what might be appropriate for your classes.
- Consider using the 4 A’s to design these breaks in the content to build relevance.
- Adapt the timing of activities to take into account the transition times between activities and instruction.
View this article to learn more about some ways you can increase active learning in a large class.
Example breakdown of a 90 minute session
Below you can see an example of how you can break a 90 minute session up to include more active learning activities.
Recommendations for effective activities
Here are some recommendations for facilitating activities in a small or large classroom.
Encourage equal participation
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Maximise your time
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Use your presence as a teaching tool
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Facilitation plan example
The following recommendations are aimed to improve the student experience within an active learning class.
| Educator Lead | Teaching Associate |
|---|---|
| Provide your TAs with two or three prompting questions, designed to trigger student group discussions during activities (Different TA each week could create and share these instead) | Review the materials and prompting questions before the class |
| Review the pre-class material to identify opportunities to refer to it in the class | Review the pre-class work to identify opportunities to link prior knowledge to the class |
| Divide the room up, giving each TA a set of tables to work with | Provide your name to your assigned table so students feel more comfortable asking for help |
| Assign both microphones to TAs on opposite sides of the room | Be aware of who is responsible for the mic |
| Educator Lead | Teaching Associate |
|---|---|
| Introduce the TAs and indicate which tables they are covering | Prop open the door at the start to minimise the noise of latecomers. |
| Ask students to move to tables with more people. “We’re doing some group activities, you’ll get more out of the class sitting with other people.” | Review the pre-class work to identify opportunities to link prior knowledge to the class |
| Minimise disruptions from students entering late by quietly letting students know what they should be doing to catch up. | |
| Identify key ideas or concepts that could be highlighted by TAs | Ask students to move to tables with more people. “We’re doing some group activities, you’ll get more out of the class sitting with other people.” |
| Ask a TA their perspective to add to the lecture. Switching up who is speaking provides variety. | If appropriate, add your perspective to the Teaching Lead’s explanation. |
| Return to your area during each didactic teaching section to maintain control and remind students who are chatting off-topic to listen. | |
| Ask students to wait for the mic before they speak. | Provide the mic to students when questions are asked. |
| Educator Lead | Teaching Associate |
|---|---|
| Ask TAs to monitor and intervene in the Think, Pair, Share or other active learning activities when students are not interacting and are completely quiet. | Don’t wait for students to raise their hand. Approach tables and state “How are you going? Explain what you have done so far” and be sure to use students’ names if you know them. |
| Encourage student leaders at each table to actively seek insights from the whole table. | If students talking at the table off-topic: “Ok everyone, let’s get started. I’ll come back in 1 minute to see if you’re having any problems.” “What’s the plan for starting this task?” |
| Provide tables with a mic so the class can hear the answer. | Talk to the groups and identify good answers, then be prepared to nominate that table to supply the exemplar answer (after asking the students if they are comfortable with sharing) |
| Take notes of the common themes coming up from different groups. | |
| Acknowledge students with a raised hand to let them know you will see them next and for them to continue. | |
| Call on a TA to answer a question if no students volunteer an answer. | Respond to a question if students don’t volunteer an answer. If you observe relevant discussion from students, respond using student discussion points where you can (e.g. one of the tables was saying…) |
| Educator Lead | Teaching Associate |
|---|---|
| Debrief the activity and bring in some perspectives developed by students (either at a synopsis level or with specific students sharing) | Feed important information regarding student understanding (where they’re excelling or struggling) to the lead academic. |
| Value add on top of this with expert perspective and general feedback for the class before linking into the next presentation / activity / etc |
| Educator Lead | Teaching Associate |
|---|---|
| Acknowledge some of the good work you saw from groups as they leave | |
| Prompt students to continue working on the assignments or post-class activities if relevant | |
| Make a connection between the workshop and applied class, so students know what to expect in the following applied class | |
| Say goodbye to students | |
