1.     How do I, as a first time teacher, establish a new culture in my class?

Skoltech students have already experienced some different-from-traditional classroom culture so you will not be starting from zero, but you may need to repeat several times, your vision and expectations of the classroom culture and their learning attitudes and behaviour.

In order to promote “active learning” culture in your class, you may provide opportunities for students to actively engage in learning activities. For example, teachers may use teaching strategies to address the needs for students to become intrinsically motivated and be more self-determined (Ryan & Deci, 2000). In addition, Good & Brophy (1990) have identified that teachers have two roles in establishing positive class culture: a) authority figurer and b) socializing agent. 

a)     The authority figure means that teachers have the responsibilities to specify clear and reasonable possibilities for action in their class. For example:

  • Clearly communicate what the instructional objectives and your expectations are for the class. 
  • Provide clear directions for instructional tasks.  The less ambiguous your directions are, the greater the likelihood students will do to achieve the intended learning outcomes.
  • In addition to helping students see the actions that are possible, we also want to make sure students see the positive consequences of desired actions - the value component of action possibilities.                                          

b)    The socializing agent refers to provide real-world experiences for students to utilize learned knowledge and interpersonal skills so that they become embodied in individual. For example:

  • Prevent problems by encouraging active engagement
  • Positive attitudes toward being challenged and questioned
  • Involve the class in decision making (provide opportunities for students to actively engage in decision making)
  • Emphasize the future utility of learning, its instrumental relationship to students’ future goals.  You can emphasize the relevance to future schooling; future careers; to becoming a productive scientist; to giving the student the tools and options for future choices
  • Create a class culture of acceptance - one in which students feel welcome, respected, share “community of practice”.  Teachers can do this by diminishing internal competition and increasing cooperation and team spirit.
2.     How do these techniques tend to go wrong?

Skoltech students will have experienced some non-lecture and active learning techniques in the Innovation Workshop, and in some of the other courses, so active learning will not be totally unfamiliar to them. If students repeatedly react negatively to a certain technique, that technique could be abandoned and another active learning technique used instead.

Students resist non-lecturing approaches because active learning alternatives provide a sharp contrast to the very familiar passive listening role to which they have become accustomed. With explicit instruction in how to actively participate and learn in less-traditional modes, students soon come to favor new approaches. An excellent text entitled “Helping Students Learn in a Learner-Centered Environment: A Guide to Facilitating Learning in Higher Education (Doyle, 2008), offers many helpful suggestions and ideas. http://www.cte.cornell.edu/documents/presentations/Active%20Learning%20-%20Creating%20Excitement%20in%20the%20Classroom%20-%20Handout.pdf

3.     The conditions that create authenticity are not understood. When does “active” learning end and experiential learning begin?  What contextual factors are essential for experiential learning?

Active learning techniques such as Think-Pair-Share, clicker systems, concept questions – are effective in engaging students in learning in a classroom lecture situation, but they are not experiential or authentic learning experiences. An authentic or experiential learning activity is one that has a real-world flavor to it, an activity or project that simulates or replicates an activity that actual engineers or scientists would do – such as a design-build project, or an experiment.

When human engage in learning activities, they actively process the information they receive from the learning environment. Most of the learning processing occurs in “working memory”, which combines the temporary storage and manipulation of information. The capacity of working memory is limited. That is the reason why a person might unable to learn new information effectively or forget the information he/she just learned.

Information can be taught as being processed along a continuum from very superficial (e.g., physical features) to deep, meaningful understanding (i.e., connected to other information in a systematic way). The deeper the processing, the more elaborate the connections. The deeper the processing, the better students remember what they have learned. So how can a teacher help students elaborate the processing and connections more efficiently? Here are the examples:

  • Authentic Learning

Authentic learning means learning that happens by actually participating and working on real-world problems, it engages learners by the opportunities of solving real-world complex problems and finding out solutions. By using this approach, learners practice the skills and knowledge that are relevant and real to workplace situations and build connections between new information and authentic situations. It allows learners to have deep information processing and make learning meaningful.

Authentic learning activities include role-playing exercises, problem based activities, case studies, and participation in virtual communities of practice. The learning environment of authentic learning is multidisciplinary in nature, for examples: designing a container for specific purpose, setting rules, planning a budget, and solving a crisis. Authentic approach of learning differs greatly from traditional “lecture” classes, where teachers give students information and content of a subject discipline that students are expected to memorize and repeat on tests. It promotes understanding through discovery and doing, which exactly reflects MIT’s motto- Mens et Manus (Mind and Hand) and Skoltech’s learning outcome framework.

  • Experiential Learning

The implication of experiential learning is similar with authentic learning, which is focused on providing learners with concrete experiences to build meaningful connections with individual prior knowledge. What is more, experiential learning emphasizes the importance of meta-cognitive skills including decision-making, self-evaluating, and self-reflecting from the learning experiences. Some examples of experience-based projects include internships, open-ended projects (guided discovery), group projects and field study. The more open-ended and non-formulaic an assignment is, the more likely students will rely on their own experience and reflection and immerse themselves in the topic.

 

4.     I agree that the active learning benefits from the collective knowledge of the students, however there might be a number of courses where this might be difficult to implement. Doesn’t it compromise the volume of material learned?

No, closer to the opposite – too much material compromises the amount of material learned.

From an instructional perspective, cognitive load theory (Sweller 1988), students can pay attention and retain information effectively only if it is provided in a way that it doesn’t “overload” their mental capacity. Therefore, if cognitive overload takes place, then learners will be more likely to make errors, not fully engage with the subject materials, and provide poor effort overall. In other words, learners can only retain a certain amount of information if they “actively” process it and engage in activities. If the instructional/learning materials are delivered to students without giving processing time or opportunities of building connections with their prior knowledge, students will not actually learn what is being taught nor will they be able to apply or recall upon that information/knowledge for later use.

In brief, if you want to design courses that are the most effective and beneficial for your students, then you must keep in mind that there are certain cognitive load limits. Overwhelming their mental pathways and structures will only lead to errors and a lack of comprehension. Here is a great article (Mayer & Moreno, 2003) introducing rationales and strategies regarding why and how to reduce cognitive overload in your course design and teaching. 

 

5.     What wasn’t clear to me is how to make students actively engage and actively participate in the Think-Pair-Share or similar activity.  I guess many students would use time given for discussion to do their own stuff like check email or play with a phone.

Faculty must set the classroom and learning expectations early and often. Tell them that after a few minutes of Think-Pair-Share, you will call on pairs to share their thoughts – then do call on them or ask for volunteers. Skoltech students are familiar with some active learning techniques and their value.  Also, if they are not engaged in learning and just passively listening to a lecture with no expectations of their involvement (a traditional, presentation-style lecture), what would be stopping them from checking their email? 

Instructors play an important role in active learning. One of the aims of active learning (e.g., think-pair-share strategy) is to let instructors (subject matter experts) have more direct opportunities to guide and interact with students (novices) and to transform novice problem solvers into experts. Instructors may ask questions to individual groups to prompt their awareness of thinking process and let students have accountabilities to identify problems, select strategies, evaluate outcomes by their self-concepts. By having this interactive teaching-learning strategy, students would be able to practice their solutions or strategies with peers and get direct feedback from their instructors. It is a type of intrinsic motivation that enhances an individual’s self-awareness of knowing that learning certain subject or content knowledge is important to them and of enjoying the learning process itself. Once students are intrinsically motivated, learning misbehaviors (e.g., checking emails, playing phones, cheating, etc.) will decrease (Graham & Weiner, 1996).

 

6.     How well does this carry over to the humanities and social sciences? Does it?

Absolutely!  Active learning techniques work with any content area. Examples of active learning in social science subjects:

7.   For More Information

 

References
  • Angelo, T. A., & Cross, P. K. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers, 2d ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass
  • Biggs, J. (2003). Teaching for quality learning at university, 2nd ed. Buckingham, England: The Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press
  • Donald, J. G. (2002). Learning to think: Disciplinary perspectives. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass
  • Duch, B. J., Groh, S. E., & Allen, D. E. (2001). The power of problem-based learning. Sterling, VA: Stylus
  • Gibbs, G. (1999). Using assessment strategically to change the way students learn.  In Brown, S. & Glasner, A. (Ed.). Assessment matters in higher education. Buckingham, England: The Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press
  • Good, T.L, and Brophy, J.E. (1990) Educational Psychology: A realistic approach (4th Ed) White Plains, NY: Longman
  • Graham, S., & Weiner, B. (1996). Theories and principles of motivation. Handbook of educational psychology, 4, 63-84.
  • Mazur, E. (1997). Peer Instruction: A User's Manual. Prentice Hall, NJ.
  • Mosteller, F., 1989, “The ‘Muddiest Point in the Lecture’ as a Feedback Device.” On Teaching and Learning, 3, 10-21.
  • Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: Classic definitions and new directions. Contemporary educational psychology, 25(1), 54-67.
  • Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning, Cognitive Science, 12, 257-285.
  • Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

 

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