Читать книгу Student Engagement Techniques - Elizabeth F. Barkley - Страница 49

Although active learning's roots run deep from an historical perspective, the term active learning was popularized in the late twentieth century with Bonwell and Eison's (1991) ASHE-ERIC Report titled “Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom.” Several definitions of active learning exist, and the following are just a few:

 Anything that involves students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing (Bonwell & Eison, 1991)

 A process whereby students engage in activities, such as reading, writing, discussion, or problem-solving, which promote analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of class content (The Regents of the University of Michigan n.d.)

 A method of learning in which students are actively or experientially involved in the learning process (Weltman & Whiteside, 2010)

In Chapter 1 of this book, as well as in our book Interactive Lecturing: A Handbook for College Faculty, we argue for a broad understanding of active learning rather than simply associating the term with a specific instructional approach, activity, or technique (Barkley & Major, 2018, p. 21). We also suggest that active learning involves making students dynamic participants in their own learning in ways that require them to integrate new information into their personal knowledge and experience. In general, we suggest that active learning happens when students are engaged in their learning in one or more of the following ways (Barkley & Major, 2018):

 Choosing sophisticated learning strategies

 Seeking deep, conceptual understanding rather than surface knowledge

 Finding connections that demonstrate personal relevance

 Using self-regulatory and metacognitive strategies

 Seeking to share personal perspectives

 Seeking to understand others' perspectives

 Demonstrating curiosity, interest, and enthusiasm

 Offering input or suggestions

 Seeking out additional and further opportunities for learning (p. 21)

Active learning puts into practice over a half-century of research that demonstrates that to truly learn, we need to take an idea or a concept or a problem solution and make it our own by working it into our personal knowledge and experience. What it boils down to in some ways is intellectual effort on the part of the student. It also encompasses the strategies that learners use.

Researchers have found that some learning strategies make some students more successful than others, and these strategies typically are examples of active learning. Educational psychologists Marton and Säljö (1976), for example, articulated such a concept in their notion of learning approaches. These researchers asked students to read materials from an academic text and then to describe what they had read. The researchers identified evidence of qualitative differences in students' reading outcomes: some students fully understood the argument and the evidence to support it, others partly understood the message and support, and still others could remember only various details. Marton and Säljö characterized the approaches in which students focused on what the authors meant and actively connected information to what they already knew as “deep learning approaches.” They characterized approaches in which students aimed to memorize facts and focus on discrete elements in the reading as “surface learning approaches.” Marton and Säljö furthered this conception of deep learning when they asked adult learners what they understood about “learning,” and made distinctions between different levels of their understandings. Säljö (1979) categorized answers in a hierarchical pattern, observing that each higher conception implied all that preceded it:

 Learning is acquiring information or “knowing a lot.”

 Learning is memorizing or “storing” information.

 Learning is acquiring facts and skills that can be used.

 Learning is making sense or “making meaning” of the various parts of information.

 Learning involves comprehending or understanding the world by reinterpreting knowledge. (cited in Ramsden, 1992, pp. 26–27)

This final level echoes the definitions of active learning. Deep or active learning approaches, then, are evident when students seek deeper understanding rather than surface information, the latter of which rests lightly on the surface, inert and unassimilated. Some students come equipped with deep learning approaches, but instructors can also help students develop or improve such approaches.