Active Learning at its best!!!

Once upon a time … I worked at a school where I had been a integral part of creating and promoting the following school vision:

A community where ACTIVE LEARNERS seek excellence, value diversity and find their own voice to become leaders for a more peaceful world.

I did so out of a strong foundational belief in the power and benefits of learning according to this methodology. Deemed as the local ‘father of reflection’, I strove to model and inculcate this vital practice for students and colleagues in developing meta-cognition and appreciation – strong bonds for building ownership for intrinsically motivated life-time learning.

I believe that in developing active learners a school needs to be dedicated to actively involving students in their own learning as they read, write, discuss, investigate, perform and problem-solve. As such, students engage in higher-order thinking tasks such as reflection, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation in their learning and performances. Current brain learning research supports the use of active learning methodologies to stretch learning in making it relevant to the students as they make personal meaning connections. As important, is the attention to creating an environment where a community of learners are supported in making use of their multiple intelligences and motivated to achieve, while attending to positive social relationships with peers and adults. Extension opportunities for developing active learners may be found in personal leadership development and participation in service learning. The over-arching goal with the use of active learning is to make learning fun and engaging (with roots in organic ‘play’).

What is Active Learning?

Active learning, at times synonymous with experiential learning, is inductive, learner centered, and activity oriented. Personalized reflection about an experience and the formulation of plans to apply learning to other contexts are critical factors in effective active learning. The emphasis in active/experiential learning is on the process of student ownership in learning.

Active/experiential learning can be viewed as a cycle consisting of the following phases, all of which are necessary:

1. The learner is actively engaged in the experience;
2. The learner is able to reflect on the experience;
3. The learner uses analytical skills to conceptualize the experience; and ultimately
4. The learner must utilize decision making and problem solving skills in order to use and apply the new ideas gained from the experience.

Examples of Active Learning Activities

*Technology may be used in many forms to engage students actively in their learning.

• Field Trips
• Fine Arts
• Narratives
• Conducting Experiments
• Simulations
• Games
• Adventure Activities
• Storytelling
• Focused Imaging
• Field Observations
• Role-playing
• Model Building
• Surveys