Activate Your Lessons

Too often the term "active learning" leads to a great misunderstanding among educators. For many, it suggests chaotic noise and physical movement in the classroom. Actually, the key component involves creating situations in which students must actively use new knowledge. This may (but need not) involve physical activity or social conversation; it must, however, include conceptual reflection. Active learning is actually intellectual working.

To make most classrooms more “active” in this sense, instructors have to ask for more than repetition of information. Below are some “intellectual action works” that can guide you in your course. Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives (ask the CIRT for a copy) provides the organization for the following higher order thinking processes. For more details (steps to follow, sample applications, pros and cons) about specific tips below – taken from Angelo and Cross, Classroom Assessment Techniques – contact the CIRT.

Apply

When you ask students to predict, select, demonstrate, explain, or perform, they must actively use the content. Here are some tips

Application cards (CAT 24) Have students write on an index card some applications for the content they just learned.

Student Test Questions (CAT 25) Ask students to write questions regarding the topic that might be included in the test bank you use for exams.

Focused Autobiography (CAT 33) Ask students to write a 1-2 page autobiography focused around course content.

Analyze

To encourage analytic activity, teachers can ask students to compare, contrast, identify parts, justify, resolve, or critique.

Approximate Analogies (CAT 15) Offer students an analogy that summarizes a concept and have them construct a similar analogy.

Pro Con Grid (CAT 10) Give students a dilemma and have them list the pros and cons that are supported by their work in the subject matter.

Problem Recognition (CAT 19) Let students review several word problems and decide which test, method, or approach should be used to solve it.

What's the Principle (CAT 20) Give a list of principles and a list of situations. Ask students to connect each situation to the right principle.

Synthesize

When teachers can get students to restate, combine, discuss or argue using material, organize ideas, or generalize, they have them actively using knowledge.

One Sentence Summary (CAT 13) Provide students with some guiding questions which, when answered, can be put together into a long sentence that brings complex ideas.

Concept Map (CAT 16) Have students draw a diagram that maps out the flow of ideas in a graphic way.

Invented Dialogue (CAT 17) Students can be asked to use quotes from the reading to invent a dialogue on a topic.

Directed Paraphrase (CAT 23) Direct students to paraphrase part of a lesson into language that would be understood by a specific audience.

Evaluate

Students can be asked to judge, evaluate, criticize, support, defend, choose positions, and/or determine values involved in decisions.

Goal Ranking (CAT 35) Have students list their goals for learning the topic; revisit these goals at the end of the unit -- can be used as a journal exercise.

Skills Checklist (CAT 34) Have students develop a checklist of skills that should be used in an assignment or concepts that must be known.

Process Analysis (CAT 39) Students can describe the steps they followed in completing an assignment and write a reflection on it.

Group Work Evaluations (CAT 47) Ask students to evaluate how well their groups have been assisting their learning.

Final Comments

While CATs are designed to gather information for teachers, they often involve good teaching strategies. The ones highlighted above can help you think through techniques that can get your students to be active in their thinking. The more students activate different parts of their brain by writing, talking, speaking, in addition to listening, the more they will process and remember the material. Higher order thinking tasks are great ways to make lessons more active.

This Teaching Tip was published by Indiana State University’s, Center for Teaching and Learning on October 5, 1998.