When you have active learning in the classroom, it is like walking into an ice-cream shop and seeing a vast amount of flavours and choices in front of you. It allows you to choose any flavour or combination of flavours that suit you and your tastes – everyone is happy because they get to choose the ice-creams that are right for them, even if it isn’t the same choice as the next person. Furthermore, it encourages you to come back for more because of the positive experience.
Active learning doesn’t need any extra resources, equipment or special seating arrangements to get started in your classroom; it can take as little as 1 minute to implement an active learning strategy, and can be very effective in shaping student confidence, communication and knowledge.
So, how can we get active learning happening in the classroom to bring out the flavour in your teaching? Whether you are face to face, or online, there are many strategies that you can put into your classroom that only need 3 things:
1. A plan
2. Curious questions
3. An observant mind
The plan
Everything works much better when there is a plan, a strategy, underpinning what we want to achieve. The active learning strategy that you choose will be completely up to you and based on what you know of your students’ strengths and weaknesses; active learning is not just getting your students to “do” a task or activity, it is about allowing them time and space to realise “how” they are learning.
How to create your active learning plan
Here are some things to think about to help you create a plan:
- What skill do I want my learners to make progress in with this lesson?
- How can they practise this skill?
- When do they need time to reflect on their progress? (before, during, after)
Planning might also involve previewing the resource – like a textbook or media clip – to make sure that it matches with what you are planning to do. Once you have achieved your plan it is time to spark curiosity with your questions!
Curious questions
How we phrase questions can either be a source of curiosity and excitement, or a repeated pattern that students learn to put less effort into. Just like planning, our use of questions needs to have a strategy and a purpose to connect the learning to the student that makes the thinking process rich and deep.
Example:
Prompt questions examples that target specific knowledge or skills:
- From the learning we have been doing, what are you most interested in exploring next?
- Is there a specific experience or event that you know of that demonstrates what we have been learning?
- When you re-read your work what 3 changes would you have made to make it better?
These prompts questions can be useful for students to write a ‘1 minute paper’ which is simply 60 seconds (or less than 5 minutes for younger learners) of continuous writing that reflects on what they have been learning in class.
This type of activity does not need to be assessed, and helps students connect what they’ve been learning to thinking about how this learning can be applied in different areas. What’s more, every answer will be different and unique to the learner; the role of the teacher in this case is to observe and synthesise the information generated.
An observant mind
Active learning as a cycle of learning relies on the teacher being able to observe, synthesise, evaluate the information gained from the students, and then innovate to create a lesson that builds on from this knowledge.
Observing the student responses in a ‘1 minute paper’ should reveal any missing knowledge or misunderstandings that the students have – it should also reveal whether they are ready to move on with their learning or whether there needs to be a pause and revision of learning so far. This type of observation also allows you to specifically identify students who may need extra help, and students who are secure in their knowledge.
The only thing left to do is make a new plan based on the observations you have made – and so the cycle is completed!
For more help with planning your active learning strategy, have a look inside our Primary and Lower Secondary books. The series is packed with activities that help you being active learning and assessment for learning into the classroom with ease.
