1. Deepening Student Engagement with Active Learning Strategies
Workshop ( not a “panel”)
THANK the American Society for Virology, Thea Sawicki, and David Esteban
Debra Rudder Lohe, Ph.D.
Director, Reinert Center
Saint Louis University
ASV Annual Meeting ~ July 21, 2013

2. Session Overview Examining Assumptions Understanding Active Learning
Yours, Mine, Ours
Understanding Active Learning
What, Why, How
Making Choices
Goals, Objectives, Philosophies

3. Session Goals This session will . . .
Introduce a range of “active learning” strategies appropriate for varying types and sizes of classes
Provide examples of small, interactive lecture techniques for efficient student engagement
Prepare you to make decisions about active learning techniques appropriate for your context
Model active learning strategies
I.e., make you do stuff!

4. Session Objectives After this session you should be able to . . .
Identify a range of active learning strategies appropriate for your own teaching situation
Explain why interactive techniques are important for learning
Connect specific active learning strategies with your goals for student learning and engagement

5. Examining Assumptions
Yours, Mine, Ours

6. Assumptions: You You care about teaching
You may not have been taught how to teach
You’re busy! And you’ve got “coverage” issues
You want deeper learning from students
“Think like a virologist” vs. “Regurgitate stuff I tell you”
Students sometimes frustrate you
And you sometimes frustrate them!
Accurate? Anyone want to take issue with these?

7. Assumptions: Teaching Virology
There is a lot of content to “cover”
And it’s growing all the time?
The signature pedagogy is lecture
Maybe with some discussion of primary literature
It happens in a lot of different contexts
Graduate, undergraduate, and medical
Small classes and large ones
Labs, clinics, and other non-classroom “learning” spaces
Accurate? Anyone want to take issue with these?

8. what assumptions do you make about “active learning”?
So . . .
what assumptions do you make about “active learning”?
It’s too time-consuming!
It won’t work for the classes I teach.
It’s just about entertaining students.
It is essential to real learning.
I can’t cover enough material and do activities.
It’s busy work (for me and for my students).

9. Assumptions: Active Learning
Learning is “active”
Students learn more (and more deeply) when they’re engaged
Lots of things constitute “active learning” – and you may already be doing some of them
Even very small active learning exercises can make a difference
Active learning strategies can be applied in any size/type class

10. Understanding Active Learning
What, Why, and How

11. It’s an approach, not a specific method.
The What: What is A.L.?
“anything that students do in the classroom other than merely passively listening to an instructor’s lecture” (Paulson & Faust)
Active Learning activities are “instructional activities involving students in doing things and thinking about what they’re doing”
(Bonwell & Eison)
“Active learning means that the mind is actively engaged. Its defining characteristics are that students are dynamic participants in their learning and that they are reflecting on and monitoring both the processes and the results of their learning.” (Barkley)
START: WHAT IS ACTIVE LEARNING?
Then: slide content and discussion
“The core elements of active learning are student activity and engagement in the learning process.”
(Prince)
It’s an approach, not a specific method.

12. The Why: What do cognitive psychologists say?
“. . . active learning involves the development of cognition, which is achieved by acquiring ‘organized knowledge structures’ and ‘strategies for remembering, understanding, and solving problems’ active learning entails a process of interpretation, whereby new knowledge is related to prior knowledge and stored in a manner that emphasizes the elaborated meaning of these relationships.”
So, for cognitive psychology, this means doing 3 key things:
Activating Prior Knowledge
Chunking
Practicing Meta-cognitive Awareness
Suzanne M. Swiderski “Active Learning: A Perspective from Cognitive Psychology” (2010)

13. The Why: How Learning Works
Ambrose et al.
Students’ prior knowledge helps / hinders new learning
How they organize knowledge influences how they learn and apply what they know.
Motivation determines, directs, and sustains what they do to learn.
To develop mastery, students must acquire component skills, practice integrating them, and know when to apply what they have learned.
Goal-directed practice, coupled with targeted feedback, enhances the quality of learning.
Students’ current level of development interacts with the social, emotional, and intellectual climate of the course to impact learning.
To become self-directed learners, students must learn to monitor and adjust their approaches to learning.

14. How Learning Works: What Matters
Ambrose et al.
Students’ prior knowledge helps / hinders new learning
How they organize knowledge influences how they learn and apply what they know.
Motivation determines, directs, and sustains what they do to learn.
To develop mastery, students must acquire component skills, practice integrating them, and know when to apply what they have learned.
Goal-directed practice, coupled with targeted feedback, enhances the quality of learning.
Students’ current level of development interacts with the social, emotional, and intellectual climate of the course to impact learning.
To become self-directed learners, students must learn to monitor and adjust their approaches to learning.

15. The Why: Average Retention Rate from Different Teaching Methods
(% of learning students can recall after 24 hours)
2% Lecture
4% Reading
7% Audiovisual
11% Demonstration
18% Discussion Group
27% Practice by Doing
31% Teach Others Immediate Use of Learning
David A. Sousa How the Brain Learns (2000)
Cited in Barkley, Student Engagement Techniques

16. The Why: Average Retention Rate from Different Teaching Methods
(% of learning students can recall after 24 hours)
2% Lecture
4% Reading
7% Audiovisual
11% Demonstration
18% Discussion Group
27% Practice by Doing
31% Teach Others Immediate Use of Learning
verbal processing
verbal + visual processing
doing / applying
David A. Sousa How the Brain Learns (2000)
Cited in Barkley, Student Engagement Techniques

17. The Why: We Want More than Recall
We want the so-called “higher-order” cognitive skills, not just repetition and regurgitation (à la Bloom)
Achieving higher levels of thinking requires students to do something, to engage actively in the learning process. Also, students learn best when they’re aware of where they are on this pyramid (meta-cognitive).
Sitting passively in class won’t promote higher-order thinking.
Neither will activities that only ask for remembering & understanding. (Caution: misalignment)

18. What “active learning” strategies do you already use?
The How:
What “active learning”
strategies do you already use?

19. The How: How Do Others Do It?
Interactive Lectures
Problem-Based Learning
Case-Based Learning
Other Inquiry-Guided Learning
Service-Learning
Collaborative and Cooperative Learning
IGL: Project-based learning, learning that starts with: a phenomenon, absence of an expected phenomenon, perceived relationship, a controversy, a complex problem, etc.
PBL: unstructured problem, multiple possible answers, with little guidance
CBL: structured “case,” with no clear single solution

20. The How: How Do Others Do It?
Interactive Lectures
Problem-Based Learning
Case-Based Learning
Other Inquiry-Guided Learning
Service-Learning
Collaborative and Cooperative Learning

21. Interactive Lecturing
Feedback Lecture
Guided Lecture
Responsive Lecture
Pause Procedure
Lecture Quiz
ConcepTests
One-Minute Papers
Think / Pair / Share
Other:
Discussion
Mini-Cases
“Flipped” Classroom

22. Making Choices
Goals, Objectives, and Philosophies

23. Barriers? Class size and/or type Time (or lack of it!)
Student perceptions, motivation
Faculty perceptions, lack of knowledge
“Content tyranny” (Prince 2004)

24. Decisions?
Start with course goals and your student learning objectives for each lecture / lesson.
What’s the difference?
Consider your teaching situation.
Reflect on your teaching philosophy and teaching style.

25. Tips for Getting Started: You
Start small – a little goes a long way, and you need different things at different times
Consider whether you really are “losing” something for content
Podcast lectures, have students doing things in class
Begin to let students help prepare / teach / model / demonstrate things in class

26. Tips for Getting Started: Them
Provide rationale (so students know “why”)
Give them a little research on learning
Introduce Bloom; use to structure exams
Set expectation from the first day
Ask students to devise or propose activities

27. What’s the I D E A?
List all the concepts, ideas, points you can recall from this session.
Identify the most important idea for your teaching.
Describe / define why it’s important for you / your courses.
Elaborate new questions it raises / calls to mind.
Apply the concept: how would you use it in class?
IDEA activity adapted from Feb 2010 issue of National Teaching and Learning Forum.

28. Questions?
Debie Lohe

29. Bloom’s Taxonomy for Thinking
(1956)
Anderson & Krathwohl (2001)

30. Goals vs. Objectives General, broad About you/course
COURSE Goals
LEARNING Objectives
General, broad
About you/course
State what you or the course will do / teach
Describe hopes & ideals for student learning
May describe kind of learning experience
Specific, concrete
About students
State what students will know and/or be able to do
Describe observable, measurable actions
Can be cognitive, affective, or psychomotor

31. Teaching Situation
Teacher
Learner
Subject
Class

32. Teaching Styles Expert Formal Authority Delegator Personal Model
Facilitator
Delegator
Anthony F. Grasha, Teaching with Style (1996)