Engaging Students with Active Learning

At today’s Pedagogy in Perspective panelists David Pinault (Religious Studies), Silvia Figueira (Computer Engineering) and Matt Bell (Psychology) each talked about how they engage student learners in their classes. David described the role of field trips, experience, reflection and the use of scholarly conflict and controversy. In response to a question he also talked about the role of emotion, and how fear/uncertainty (about a new, unscripted and out of the classroom experience) can situate students for particularly deep learning. Sylvia talked about positioning first-year students to take responsibility for their own learning (even/especially) in required intro courses, the value of regular homework, frequent opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning, and (like David) about the role of field trips that exposed students to engineering course content outside of the classroom context. Matt, whose research is in the field of learning, talked about his recent work in a learning class with a specific pedagogical technique, “interteaching,” where he asks students to demonstrate their reading comprehension and conceptual grasp (and gaps) by teaching each other, writing questions, and then determining the next day’s course content by their questions. Discussion following their presentations was lively. Many thanks to all participants, including, especially, our presenters: David, Silvia and Matt!

Want to do a little more thinking about how to engage your students?

• Many SCU faculty are regular readers of Rick Reis’ Tomorrow’s Professor, so you may have seen this posting by Richard Felder a couple of months ago on Active Learning and Student Resistance.
• September’s Teaching Carnival in ProfHacker provided a particularly useful (and quick and inviting) overview of recent conversation about teaching in college and university classrooms, including posts about active learning.
• TLT:  We now have an institutional membership (thanks, Nancy Cutler!) in the TLT Group, a non-profit affiliated with the American Association for Higher Education. TLT helps university faculty take advantage of changing technology to improve teaching and learning. Our institutional membership means all faculty can use current and archived materials on the TLT site, including regular webinars such as the Friday Live program. A couple of us participated in TLT webinars last year to test them out, and we found them useful. For those of us not able to find time to get off campus to a teaching conference, a webinar (right there in the comfort (?)) of our offices allows interactive input on teaching and learning.  (If you can’t make their regular times–Fridays at 11 am our time–you can access them later via the institutional membership.) What’s that you say? You want lunch after? Invite a colleague to do a TLT webinar with you, email Eileen Elrod about that, and Teaching Scholar will spring for lunch.  Two upcoming topics are related to the idea of engaged, active learning: one on student resistance (which Felder addresses in the Tomorrow’s Professor Posting) and one on faculty resistance.