Active Learning

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Bonwell, Charles C., & Eison, James A. (1991). Active Learning:  Creating Excitement In The Classroom.  ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 1, Washington, D.C.:  The George Washington University, School of Education and Human Development.

Paired Pauses:  stop for two minutes several times during the lecture.  Each time, students pair up with someone next to them and discuss the lecture and compare notes. 

End of Class Free Recall: at the end of class, students are given three minutes to write down everything they can recall from lecture.

Guided Lecture:  the preceding technique (End of Class Free Recall) is followed by students forming groups and reconstructing the lecture.

Feedback Lectures: after each 20 minutes of lecture, students pair off and respond to a discussion question provided by the instructor.

Student-Generated Questions:  one class per week is devoted to answering open-ended student-generated questions over material covered so far in the course.  Students each make up questions, specifying why they believe the question important.  The class then orders the questions in order of general interest, and for the rest of the class the instructor answers as many as he/she can.

“Explication de Texte”: model a good study skill  by reading passages from the text out loud and analyzing them.  Criticize, but be logical and unemotional about it (most students only associate “criticize” with emotional griping).

Media as Triggers for Discussion:  instead of showing an hour-long video, show short clips for class discussions, short writing assignments, or to model what you want students to do in an ensuing demonstration or laboratory assignment.

Case Studies: the most famous example of using case studies is Harvard Business School.  But Harvard also uses case studies for undergraduate class of up to 80 students!

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