Active Learning Strategies

In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
– Hoffa

As teachers, we must remember that “students become active learners within supportive learning environments that teachers create,” (Brozo, 42). Thus, we are the crucial component of guidance and encouragement which students shall receive in learning how to become active learners. The following information is derived from Readers, Teachers, Learners: Expanding Literacy Across the Content Areas and the Internet to provide principles and ideas behind the incorporation of active learning strategies in middle and high school classrooms.

Five Theoretical Principles to Guide Students’ Active Learning

(Brozo, 28)

. Active learners use their prior knowledge in the meaning

making process.

. Active learners understand and use text structures to organize their meaning making.

. Active learners think critically about text and create their own elaborations.

. Active learners are metacognitively aware.

. Active learners possess and employ a wide range of reading and learning strategies.

Active Learning

Research shows that such passive involvement as listening to the instructor, looking at the occasional overhead or slide, and reading (when required) the text book does not encourage students to retain knowledge. As the illustration below shows, retention levels are very low with such passive instruction. Yet, “research also indicates that by re-organizing or adapting the ways they present material to students, instructors can create an environment in which knowledge
retention is significantly increased.” This website offers an excellent portrayal of the importance and components of active learning.

I think this website is excellent. I would recommend that every teacher review it and take the ideas it holds into consideration when planning classroom instruction. Not only does it tell teachers that the traditional forms of passive instruction are not successful, but it shows us just how successful or unsuccessful those and other methods are.

Integrating Prior Knowledge

Prior knowledge, or what learners already know, plays a major role in active learning. “[Students] prior knowledge, and what they want to know will affect the ease or difficulty of their meaning making or understanding and their subsequent learning,” (Brozo, 29). This website, although written in specific perspective of students’ museum experience, is just as applicable to the general classroom experience. It presents the idea that learning proceeds primarily from prior knowledge and secondarily from presented materials. It stresses the importance of prior knowledge, yet it also poses the problem that, while such knowledge is usually a building block, it sometimes serves as a stumbling block. As illustration, the site poses several situations in which it is apparent prior knowledge has forced students to have false preconceived notions about a topic. The site then focuses on the differing perspectives that “the tension is between celebrating learners’ constructive capabilities and bemoaning the inadequacy of their understanding.” The website author presents views of prior knowledge through the eyes of Piaget, Vgotsky, and others, allowing us to see different opinions and arguments. In the end, the site concludes that we “cannot eliminate or disable prior knowledge, but rather must work with it.”

This website is excellent in quality. It is very appropriate for educators, especially in the view that it presents an often overlooked possibility. It is important that we, as teachers, look forward to building off of the prior knowledge of students, but it is also important that we realize that prior knowledge is not always reliable. This information can, and should, be utilized by middle and high school educators to prepare themselves for the utilization of prior knowledge within their classrooms.

Helping Students Understand Text Structure

Research shows that educating students about text structure aids their comprehension, thus, enabling them to be more active learners. In support of this idea, this website presents various concepts about text structures. It offers an explanation of narrative text as “setting information, problem, and episodes that describe attempts to resolve the problem” and expository text as the four organizational patterns of “response (problem/solution), adversative (comparison/contrast), covariance (cause/effect), and attribution (collection). The site focuses on teaching about text structures with the aid of visual representations. “As early as 1983, Geva found that actively involving students in creating flowcharts that represent text content and structure in a graphic form assisted students in identifying and clarifying their understanding of relations among text elements.” The site presents ideas such as using story maps, character maps, timelines, concept maps, Venn diagrams, and technology programs such as Timeliner, Inspiration, Kidspiration, and Access, to illustrate the concept of text strucure.

I think this site is very helpful and appropriate. Educators could utilize this site to obtain fresh ideas to keep their students interested in content-filled lessons, such as text structure. I feel that utilizing such a strategy would help create more enthusiasm in students than performing a dry text presentation of the ideas and would also help cater to students with varying learning styles. I would definitely use some of these ideas in my own classroom.

Text Structure Vocabulary

This site provides a broad list of words related to the components of text structure. Each word is listed is important to understand when working with text structure. Words such as: *considerate text: Text that is well-written and well-organized, thereby making it easy to understand and * signal words: Words that alert the reader to connections and relationships in sentences or paragraphs. Examples include "first," "then," "next," "because," "so," etc. are deciphered.

I think this site is well presented. It is concise and easy to maneuver. I think it is very appropriate, in that all teachers need to have a good grasp on such component words before teaching the concept of text structure. I would use this list to familiarize myself with such material before guiding students through their own use.

Active Metacognition

Metacognition is “the ‘knowledge and control we have over thinking and learning activities,’” (39). Readers, Teacher, and Learners, Expanding Literacy Across the Content points out that active learners utilize a wide variety of metacognition strategies, such as “self-questioning, paraphrasing, comparing key ideas, and using their prior knowledge,” (39). This website contains numerous strategies for self-evaluation in the areas of preparing to learn, studying, participating in class, and reading and writing skills. The page is made up of numerous links, the most helpful seemingly being , Learning to Learn which presents a serious of self-evaluating questions about personal metacognition strategies, such as:

*What affects my dedication to learning this?

*Do I have a plan? Does my plan consider my past experience and learning style?

*What is the heading or title?
*What are key words that jump out?
*Do I understand them?

*What do I know about this already?
*Do I know related subjects?

The information on this website is endless, earning it a rating of excellent. It is well-organized and easy to explore. The site could provide an incredible amount of useful information for any classroom teacher. I think that the “Learning to Learn” link above would be very useful in the first few weeks of class, when a teacher is still trying to discover if and how much students evaluate their own processes.

Strategy Vocabulary I

This website provides some very helpful explanations of several active learning strategies. Among the most useful appear role-playing, a method of acting out an imaginary, but real-life situation; brainstorming, a good technique for generating ideas quickly, and games, which promote participation and hard work.

This website is helpful, but not all-inclusive. I would recommend that teachers use it to gather ideas and get their own ideas flowing.

Strategy Vocabulary II

It is important that students become familiar with numerous strategies so that they may choose which are most efficient for them. This website hosts some wonderful strategy ideas. Ideas such as the Carousel Brainstorming Technique would likely facilitate enthusiasm among students. The Carousel Brainstorming Technique is simple:

*several questions are introduced by the instructor on separate pieces of poster board

*students work in cooperative groups to write their responses to each question on the

posterboard—moving from poster to poster after a specific amount of time

*each group can also respond to comments other groups have written

*upon completion an integrated discussion of the content is instituted.

I think this website is very helpful and very appropriate. I would utilize it when planning for my classroom and would also suggest it to other teachers. It is a great source of a mixture of new and old ideas.

Bibliography of Resources for Middle and Secondary Teachers that Promote Active Learning

Association of College and Resea, Dempsey, P. (Ed.), Gradowski, G.

(Ed.), Snavely, L. (Ed.). (1998). Designs for Active Learning:
A SourceBook of Classroom Strategies for Information Education. American Library Association.

(paperback, 238 pages, ISBN: 0838979467)

Bonwell, C., Eison, J. (1991). Active Learning : Creating Excitement