Faculty Experiences In Active Learning

For decades, if not more, the pedagogy of choice for higher education was the lecture: students sat quietly in a large classroom, stared at the teacher while the teacher lectured about a subject some students knew nothing about. Students were discouraged from talking to fellow classmates and teachers, but were encouraged to take notes. However, with new technologies, including including computers, the internet, cell phones, smart devices, and social media, pedagogy has changed drastically. Students are now asked to multitask (listen, watch, read) not just take notes on the lecture. These changes require effective teaching pedagogy that engages multiple human technologies--speaking, hearing, responding, interacting, organizing, among others--a pedagogy that is called active learning. Faculty Experiences in Active Learning, a book authored by twenty-four faculty and administrators, works to ignite a culture of active learning in higher education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. UNC Charlotte has been working to become a national leader in active learning transformation since 2014. The University promotes the use of active learning pedagogy through a faculty community of practice called the Active Learning Academy and provides supporting spaces for active learning through construction and renovations of classrooms to be active learning centers. This book, authored by Active Learning Academy members, was written for higher education faculty and students planning to teach at the post-secondary level and is a guide for considering the diverse pathways that active learning can take based on student population, approach, discipline, and learning environment. The chapters in this book cover a range of topics on active learning: implementing logistics and strategies for getting started with active learning methods, using flipped classroom models, evaluating student engagement, addressing accessibility in active learning classrooms, and experimenting with adaptive academic technologies. Design patterns for planning active learning engagement in your classroom are provided along with examples of pitfalls that can occur with each activity and best practices for using activities successfully.

While Active Learning Classrooms, or ALCs, offer rich new environments for learning, they present many new challenges to faculty because, among other things, they eliminate the room’s central focal point and disrupt the conventional seating plan to which faculty and students have become accustomed.The importance of learning how to use these classrooms well and to capitalize on their special features is paramount. The potential they represent can be realized only when they facilitate improved learning outcomes and engage students in the learning process in a manner different from traditional classrooms and lecture halls.This book provides an introduction to ALCs, briefly covering their history and then synthesizing the research on these spaces to provide faculty with empirically based, practical guidance on how to use these unfamiliar spaces effectively. Among the questions this book addresses are:• How can instructors mitigate the apparent lack of a central focal point in the space?• What types of learning activities work well in the ALCs and take advantage of the affordances of the room?• How can teachers address familiar classroom-management challenges in these unfamiliar spaces?• If assessment and rapid feedback are critical in active learning, how do they work in a room filled with circular tables and no central focus point?• How do instructors balance group learning with the needs of the larger class?• How can students be held accountable when many will necessarily have their backs facing the instructor?• How can instructors evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching in these spaces?This book is intended for faculty preparing to teach in or already working in this new classroom environment; for administrators planning to create ALCs or experimenting with provisionally designed rooms; and for faculty developers helping teachers transition to using these new spaces.

Active Learning: A practical Guide for College Faculty offers everyday guidance for implementing and improving active learning in the college classroom. This collection of articles is appropriate for both the complete novice as well as the instructor who may have used active learning techniques before.

Active learning occurs when a learning task can be related in a non-arbitrary manner to what the learner already knows and when there is a personal recognition of the links between concepts. The most important element of active learning is not so much in how information is presented, but how new information is integrated into an existing knowledge base. In order to successfully implement active learning into higher education, its effect on student engagement must be studied and considered. The Handbook of Research on Active Learning and Student Engagement in Higher Education focuses on assessing the effectiveness of active learning and constructivist teaching to promote student engagement and provides a wide range of strategies and frameworks to help educators and other practitioners examine the benefits, challenges, and opportunities for using active learning approaches to maximize student learning. Covering topics such as online learning environments and engagement approaches, this major reference work is ideal for academicians, practitioners, researchers, librarians, industry professionals, educators, and students.

Teaching in the Built Environment: Creating Transformational Active Learning Experiences offers a blueprint for teaching success from an award-winning team of educators, with classroom-ready strategies for maximizing undergraduate learning in built environment disciplines. Drawing on the authors’ years of experience as education researchers and faculty at one of the nation’s top design and construction schools, this primer empowers instructors to implement high impact teaching practices in any educational setting, from intimate seminars to "mega classes" of hundreds of students. Chapters on internships, study abroad, and field experiences equip faculty with teaching tools guaranteed to work on or off campus. Just as importantly, this book identifies the teaching tactics that don’t work. The authors’ candid reflections on their own failed pedagogical experiments help instructors avoid confidence-shaking missteps and encourage them to turn teaching struggles into future successes. A thorough review of the latest education research provides theoretical context and empirical support for strategies direct from the authors’ award-winning classrooms, studios, and labs. Features: Classroom-tested strategies for maximizing undergraduates’ learning in built environment disciplines Adapted teaching methods from the authors’ award-winning classrooms, studios, and labs to any higher education setting An ideal resource for built environment faculty, from first timers to veteran educators The latest research on teaching and learning in design and construction disciplines A must-read for built environment educators, from first-time faculty to classroom veterans, Teaching in the Built Environment: Creating Transformational Active Learning Experiences inspires teaching that will resonate long past the semester’s end.

This book focuses on selected best practices for effective active learning in Higher Education. Contributors present the epistemology of active learning along with specific case studies from different disciplines and countries. Discussing issues around ICTs, collaborative learning, experiential learning and other active learning strategies.

Dee Fink poses a fundamental question for all teachers: "How can I create courses that will provide significant learning experiences for my students?" In the process of addressing this question, he urges teachers to shift from a content-centered approach to a learning-centered approach that asks "What kinds of learning will be significant for students, and how can I create a course that will result in that kind of learning?" Fink provides several conceptual and procedural tools that will be invaluable for all teachers when designing instruction. He takes important existing ideas in the literature on college teaching (active learning, educative assessment), adds some new ideas (a taxonomy of significant learning, the concept of a teaching strategy), and shows how to systematically combine these in a way that results in powerful learning experiences for students. Acquiring a deeper understanding of the design process will empower teachers to creatively design courses for significant learning in a variety of situations.

Active learning, an instructional method that engages students in the learning process, is becoming more common in higher education (Prince, 2004). This method can be implemented in a traditional lecture hall or a room designed specifically for active learning, but these teaching strategies are a shift for most faculty members away from sage-on-the-stage lectures and exams. As a result, faculty development has become a new challenge for some, as active learning teaching strategies are becoming more popular in some schools. The purpose of this research was to explore what other universities are doing to help prepare their faculty for teaching in an active learning classroom. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with six universities about their experiences with faculty training on pedagogy and technology for active learning. The goal was to discover what commonalities might exist, along with any outliers, and to develop recommendations for schools developing active learning training.

There is a need in the higher education arena for a book that responds to the need for using technology in a classroom of tech-savvy students. This book is filled with illustrative examples of questions and teaching activities that use classroom response systems from a variety of disciplines (with a discipline index). The book also incorporates results from research on the effectiveness of the technology for teaching. Written for instructional designers and re-designers as well as faculty across disciplines. A must-read for anyone interested in interactive teaching and the use of clickers. This book draws on the experiences of countless instructors across a wide range of disciplines to provide both novice and experienced teachers with practical advice on how to make classes more fun and more effective.”--Eric Mazur, Balkanski Professor of Physics and Applied Physics, Harvard University, and author, Peer Instruction: A User’s Manual “Those who come to this book needing practical advice on using ‘clickers’ in the classroom will be richly rewarded: with case studies, a refreshing historical perspective, and much pedagogical ingenuity. Those who seek a deep, thoughtful examination of strategies for active learning will find that here as well—in abundance. Dr. Bruff achieves a marvelous synthesis of the pragmatic and the philosophical that will be useful far beyond the life span of any single technology.” --Gardner Campbell, Director, Academy for Teaching and Learning, and Associate Professor of Literature, Media, and Learning, Honors College, Baylor University

Tips and techniques to build interactive learning into lecture classes Have you ever looked out across your students only to find them staring at their computers or smartphones rather than listening attentively to you? Have you ever wondered what you could do to encourage students to resist distractions and focus on the information you are presenting? Have you ever wished you could help students become active learners as they listen to you lecture? Interactive Lecturing is designed to help faculty members more effectively lecture. This practical resource addresses such pertinent questions as, “How can lecture presentations be more engaging?” “How can we help students learn actively during lecture instead of just sitting and passively listening the entire time?” Renowned authors Elizabeth F. Barkley and Claire H. Major provide practical tips on creating and delivering engaging lectures as well as concrete techniques to help teachers ensure students are active and fully engaged participants in the learning process before, during, and after lecture presentations. Research shows that most college faculty still rely predominantly on traditional lectures as their preferred teaching technique. However, research also underscores the fact that more students fail lecture-based courses than classes with active learning components. Interactive Lecturing combines engaging presentation tips with active learning techniques specifically chosen to help students learn as they listen to a lecture. It is a proven teaching and learning strategy that can be readily incorporated into every teacher’s methods. In addition to providing a synthesis of relevant, contemporary research and theory on lecturing as it relates to teaching and learning, this book features 53 tips on how to deliver engaging presentations and 32 techniques you can assign students to do to support their learning during your lecture. The tips and techniques can be used across instructional methods and academic disciplines both onsite (including small lectures and large lecture halls) as well as in online courses. This book is a focused, up-to-date resource that draws on collective wisdom from scholarship and practice. It will become a well-used and welcome addition for everyone dedicated to effective teaching in higher education.