1. Activity based learning
Helen Walmsley-Smith and Duncan Hindmarch

2. Session aim: To develop active learning approaches in our practice
Objectives:
Identify key activity-based pedagogical approaches
Participate in active learning tasks
Highlight some technologies to support active learning
Reflect on own practice
It’s not about telling you what to do!

3. Mix pair share Bags away, laptops off and pick up your pen!
Stand up and walk around the room
When I call ‘pair’ find the person closest to you and sit down
Say hello, make sure you know their name and work role then go on to…

4. Timed pair share: #staffstel
A speaks for 1 minute about their favourite teaching activity, B listens
B tells A something positive they learned from listening
Swap roles
#staffstel

5. Mini-lecture: What is active learning?
Whilst listening, take notes on the following: What is active learning? What are key principles of active learning?

6. What is active learning?
Opportunity to apply prior learning and experiences
Practical based tasks connect knowledge to realistic and useful work-based scenarios
Pair and group tasks can help to build broader social/employability skills
Feedback: informs learners about incomplete understandings and encourages them to fix this, for example by helping each other.
Gives teachers regular, informal feedback on what learners understand, and who needs help
Develops higher level thinking skills such as analysis problem solving, and evaluation
We learn by doing. Research shows that active learning is much better recalled, enjoyed and understood. Active methods require us to ‘make our own meaning’ , that is, develop our own conceptualisations of what we are learning. Geoff Petty
Remember Bloom’s Taxonomy…
Hattie – highest effect size of regular feedback highest (see also Black and Wiliam)

7. Kagan key principles: Pies
POSITIVE INTERDEPENDENCE
The learning task promotes teamwork and students experience themselves as being on the same side;
INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTABILITY
Each student is held accountable for their individual contribution;
EQUAL PARTICIPATION
Students participate about equally; and
SIMULTANEOUS INTERACTION
Many students are engaged at once.
Source: Kagan Cooperative Learning – it’s all about engagement. (2008)
Set clear time boundaries
Consider extension activities for faster groups
Remember to assess learning throughout
Mix with passive learning

8. Active learning: additional principles?
Set clear time boundaries
Consider extension activities for faster groups
Remember to assess learning throughout
Mix with passive learning

9. Lecture review task Pair task (2 minutes)
Compare and agree your notes on the following questions:
What is active learning?
What are key principles of active learning?
Assessment
Any areas of disagreement in your notes?
Discuss and agree one question for the lecturer.
What other ways can we make a lecture more interactive? Allocate specific topics to focus on then reconstruct in pairs/groups
Specific topics then must come up with a question each.
Digital notebook, shareable, searchable

10. 30 seconds to go… Time to start completing your discussion
Summarise your main conclusions

11. Ok time to finish your discussion
Politely nudge anyone still talking
On-screen classroom timer

12. How engaged were you during the lecture? Why? Why not?
Lecture reflections
Group 1:
How engaged were you during the lecture? Why? Why not?
Group 2:
What strategies were used to mix active and passive approaches to learning?
3 minutes
Collaborative web-page for collating ideas

13. Kagan Cooperative Active content delivery
Memorise your teaching approach definition (1 minute)
Peer teaching and assessment (3 minutes)
Form a pair and recite your approach and definition
Test that your partner has memorised your key information correctly. Swap roles
When you have learnt each other’s information, swap cards and find another partner
Form new pairs and repeat (3 mins)
Form new pairs and repeat…
Model this first
BB Tests and Quizzes
Socrative quizzes

14. Technologies for Active Learning
In your group discuss the tools and pedagogic approach you have been given
For tips go to
See if you can devise a series of activities that you could use with this tool
Share your ideas with the other group
#staffstel

15. Reflection and Evaluation
What changes could you make to your teaching practice?
What support will you need?
For further information and videos, go to Iris/Digital U home to see resources for:
Activity-based learning
Teaching with… tools pages
Workshops and events
Evaluate today’s session (on low tech post-its!)
Show the web page