Planning for Active Learning
As discussed for Career Schools the "active"part is much more readily implemented in labs. We have objectives, plan strategies, and access the final product. In lecture we do the same thing but time is so short and material is so broad that often instructors rush to complete it and skip the active component in the interest of completeness. To my frustration at times students appear to have the concept in the lecture but retention is poor. You have to find methods: the objectives, and properly referenced resources, and telling students they are responsible for all objectives even if all is not discussed in class. In that way you can use more time for active learning and students become accustomed to directed learning. So you do not hear phases like "you did not teach me that" or "you did not cover that in class". Directed learning is active because the student has to participate in collection and learning of materials in the objective.
Hi Kendall,
Introduce the students into this transition slowly.
Patricia Scales
These are some great points. I find in an already "hands on" program implementing activites in the classroom setting is difficult due to time constraints. I would love to have my students take more responsibility for the material, but find it difficult to change their mentality. In an environment where students are only used to active learning in a lab setting and rely so much on lecture in the classroom, how can I start to make this transition?
