i love this! I try to do something simillar in my public speaking class in which i ask them to act out various forms of delivery as modeled by famous speeches in history. It fun, usually, funny, and effective
Hi Karen,
Wow, super! This type of activity can generate a lot of discussiona and really get students to think. One may see it as important to them, where another may see it as being least important.
Patricia
We used to teach music concepts (Audio 101) by lecture, but now each student has a keyboard and a guitar, and we actively teach them to play. Nothing brings music terms and concepts to life like learning to play an instrument. Terms like "chords" and "melody" really take on meaning when you're learning guitar or piano. It's amazing.
As a Director of a Life Skills program, we have just recently started implementing some methods, new to us, that can engage the students thereby making the students more active learners. For example, we put a random order list on the board in a time management class. Each student is provided a different color marker. They number the list according to priority. When complete, we are able to discuss how to prioritize and what different students used to determine their individual priority and why. Very effective in seeing others point of view.
With this approach I always try to draw more interest by including Historical, and cultural references which often helps students relate.
One of the biggest dilemmas in my current situation is that the topics that I discuss should, by nature, be facilitated by active learning. However, the classroom environment is that of purely lecture.
Learning a new piece of software is something that is very difficult to do if you are just reading from the manual to the student, or even demonstrating it on a smartboard at the front of class. In order to facilitate better understanding, designing small activities that get the students into the software will help more; the interactive nature of software requires that there be interaction with that software.
-E.A.W.
I did this with my cybercrime course. Traditionally, the course is presented as lecture with definitions of terms such as "social engineering" and "dumpster diving."
However, I mixed up. After covering the term "social engineering" I immediately have the students become social engineers by trying to persuade other members of the class that they are someone they are not and extract information from each other using social engineering.
For dumpster diving....you guessed it...they get gloves and dig through trash to find clues to a mystery that I have planted. It is messy (our campus president loves the trash being laid out :-), but the students get a feel for what the activity actually is.
Hi Jessica,
You use great tactics to get students involved and to capture all types of learners. By utlizing the various methods your students should not suffer from boredom.
Patricia
Hi Victor,
I have found that evaluations can be used as a tool to help improve teaching methods. It is awesome that you were so receptive to this suggestion. It makes for a better instructor.
Patricia
I received a class evaluation and a student asked for me to lecture less and include more discussion, I thought about it and realized that I had too much lecture....
After going through this course, I realize that I've never delivered a 'pure' lecture. I've always used the lecture/discussion method. I think it was self-defense though. :) Bored students are onery.
I teach a beginning grammar course. Something that I already do is chunking. We take a concept from the material, power point main points, discuss them and try them together. This tends to cover the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners. Then they engage in intrapersonal learning by trying other activities on their own. Then they get into small groups (interpersonal learning) to review the answers, help each other, and ask questions of me. At all times, I'm available for individual help and help at the group stages.
Hi Joan,
Students love active learning. Anytime you can incorporate hands-on activities into the lesson you should.
Patricia
I teach as a lab assistant. I find that lab nights are the students favorite nights because that is when they can see and are hands on doing the procedures that was lectured on the day before
Hi Judith,
I really like how you bring in the spiritual realm of things. This statement is very profound and all so true. I can see how it can really grab students attention.
Patricia
remembering that who you are is God's gift to you and who you become, is your gift back to him. i have found this saying to be some beneficial in just everyday conversations with young adult learners. they often times are so negative, eager to put the blame on their present being on somewhat else, rather taking a serious indepth look within.
Hi Robert,
What a practical concept. Students can really relate to the IRS, and it makes it exciting.
Patricia
I teach an Income Tax course.
Instead of only lecturing on tax guidelines, I will assign each student a specific case.The goal of each case will be to actually prepare an income tax return.
This will actively engage the students to apply IRS rules & guidelines.
I have to "Jump-start" my students on learning Medical Terminology. We go over an eight page list of prefixes, root words, and suffixes. They inevitably become overwhelmed and loose focus. I am going to try to make a game out of this material by dividing the class into two groups and giving each team the task of making up five diseases by using the terminology words. Each team will then try to stump the other team with their "made-up" diseases. If the team is successful in stumping the other team, they get a point. But if the other team interprets the disease correctly, their team gets the point. At the end of ten questions the team with the highest score wins bragging rights. This game should get the class working as teams, and more importantly, learning terminology.
When discussing a body system such as the digestive system, I carefully trace each step of the alimentary tube from the mouth to the anus. But I could, after going over this system once, assign small groups of students to be parts of the digestive system, and then, one at a time have them present to the class how their part works in the chain of events that is digestion. Each group would be expected to be experts on their own part and show how it works with the other parts in the completion of the entire system. This should get the students analyzing their own portion of the system and role-playing as they present their portion to the entire class.
Hi Diab,
Active learning can be used in any course and with any teaching method. Students get excited and very interested whenever active learning is taking place.
Patricia
