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Just engaging students in a given task is not sufficient. It is not safe, for example, to conclude that if students are talking to each other they are learning. It is equally risky to conclude that students are learning when they are listening to other students talking. Something beyond the task has to happen for active learning to occur.

We propose that when identifying a technique to promote active learning in a college course, teachers should consider not only the learning task but also a goal for the level of activity involved. By level of activity, we mean students' mental investment and the strategies they use to reflect on and monitor the processes and the results of their learning (Barkley & Major, 2018). Level of activity is a discrete component because one type of learning task does not necessarily demand more mental investment than another; rather, each type of learning task can require more or less mental activity depending on the individual learner as well as the content and design of the specific task. For example, although some educators argue that students who are listening to a lecture are necessarily learning more passively than those who are solving problems, consider the following problem: X + 3 = 5. Most college students can solve this problem without too much mental activity. However, college students who are listening carefully to a lecture can have high levels of mental activity, including focused attention, curiosity, empathy, critical thinking, and so forth. Thus, students can have low to high levels of mental activity in any given learning task and any given learning task can require and result in more or less active learning from students. We offer our own conception of the active learning continuum for several key learning tasks in Table 3.2 (from Barkley & Major, 2018, pp. 22–23).

The challenge for faculty who wish to employ active learning techniques to promote deeper, more active learning is to find techniques that can help students move from level 1 (low) to level 3 (high) on the continuum in terms of their mental activity, whatever the learning task happens to be. Active learning techniques are a vehicle to help students not only take on the task but also engage in the higher levels of active learning.

TABLE 3.2. The Active Learning Continuum for Several Key Learning Tasks

LearningTask	Level of Mental Activity
1 Low	2 Moderate	3 High
Listening	Listens for facts and information	Maintains concerted attention while trying to understand the message and to formulate questions about the message	Expresses interest and enthusiasm; attempts to critique and evaluate the message; monitors own attention
Problem-solving	Solves the problem	Recognizes the underlying structure of the problem	Considers the processes for solving the problem and self-monitors efforts and progress
Reading	Seeks facts and information	Seeks structural understanding	Seeks meaning and monitors own reading engagement; investigates related readings and resources
Discussing	Relays facts	Conveys ideas and concepts and encourages others	Shares personal perspectives and seeks to understand others; argues and evaluates concepts; self-monitors participation
Writing	Describes and defines	Explains and applies; expresses personal perspectives; seeks out references	Critiques, evaluates, and creates; seeks to express personal perspectives and connect with others' ideas; monitors progress and assesses quality