Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin’s aphorism makes intuitive sense; if students are more deeply involved and engaged they will learn more deeply. That sentiment is prevalent in higher education where many instructors use active learning strategies intended to involve students more deeply in the learning process. The term “active” implies that students learn by doing, whether the activity involves interactions among students, hands-on experiences, or broad approaches to learning such as problem-based or cased-based learning. As these techniques proliferate, it is worth asking why some active learning experiences are better than others; why some lead to deeper learning and others simply result in action without learning.
A science education project at Vanderbilt University points to some answers. Researchers created a 6th grade science curriculum called Mission to Mars in which students grappled with authentic problems about space travel to and from Mars. At the end of the unit students did a culminating project in which they built and launched model rockets, a highly engaging, hands-on activity.
As expected they were excited about the project, and successfully built and launched their rockets. But as a learning experience the task was a flop. Students were unable to answer questions about how a rocket works or what accounts for an effective design. When asked about the purpose of the activity, students said things like, “You know, to build them and see how high they will go.” Asked about measuring how high things go, a common response was, “You know, look at it go up and see how high it goes.” Students had participated in an engaging, hands-on activity in which they learned almost nothing about science.
Disappointed with the results, the researchers redesigned the task with two goals in mind—to preserve students’ enthusiasm for the subject and to promote their understanding of scientific knowledge of rocketry. They came up with an elegant solution; students were given the job of developing design plans for a NASA rocket kit that would be used by children across the country. The assignment, called Request for Design Plans, asked students to examine various features of model rockets and then determine what materials should be included in the rocket kits. Below is an excerpt of the assignment.
We are especially interested in three questions. First, will our rockets go higher if we sand and paint them or leave them unfinished? While it would be much cheaper to leave them unfinished, we want to maximize the height our rockets reach; second, will the number of fins have any effect on the height of the rockets; primarily 3 vs. 4 fins? Again there are economic considerations involved; third, does the type of nose cone have an effect on the height of the model rocket? We have rounded and pointed cones.
How did the design-a-rocket-kit project work out? By all accounts the new assignment produced a much richer learning experience. Students were excited about creating rocket kits for other children, and worked on the project in earnest. They also developed deeper understanding of the science of rocketry including
· how to do controlled experiments to test the quality of their designs
· how to measure the height of a rocket launch
· recording results from each launch
· noting sources of variance in their measurements (e.g., a windy day)
· debating what features should be experimentally manipulated in each subsequent rocket trial.
Teachers indicated that students asked better and more informed questions about rockets in class. And, the students spontaneously offered assistance to students from classes that did the traditional build-a-rocket assignment.
Implications for college teaching. Here you have two engaging, hands-on activities with strikingly different outcomes. What accounts for the differences in learning? These tasks illustrate that what matters most in active learning is not what students do physically but how they engage the tasks mentally. What’s going on inside their heads trumps what they are doing behaviorally. The build-a rocket task did not evoke scientific thinking; all students had to do was follow a set of instructions. In contrast the design task presented students with authentic problems and nudged them toward a way of thinking about them (e.g., experimental manipulation of variables). To accomplish the task students needed to adopt a methodology and bring scientific knowledge to bear on the solutions. The task provided a knowledge building framework with problems, conditions and constraints within which to operate.
Some active learning experiences in college are equivalent to the build-a-rocket task. For example, many times I use a generic discussion format to involve students in class (e.g., form small groups and discuss this topic). These are often lively but not always productive learning experiences. If you have observed discussions in your own or others’ classes you have certainly seen student interactions that are halting, irrelevant to the topic, and meandering.
To promote learning from discussion, of course, involves designing a task that engages students in the kind of thinking you want and the kind of interactions that support that thinking. A well designed active learning task engages students in a knowledge building process of using the subject matter in a purposeful, authentic way. In my classes, discussions are more productive if they are motivated by questions and problems that matter (i.e., have some obvious significance beyond the context of school learning). Of course, not all students care about the problems but at least there is a point to the discussion beyond killing time until class is over.
A second design consideration is how to structure and promote the interaction (i.e., the activity). When you tell students to discuss a topic, what do you think that means to them? Unless the task structures knowledge building interactions, students are likely to fall back on their own idea of discussion (e.g., just say something you know). For example, if the goal is for students to develop a better understanding of the topic, the discussion could involve them in using key concepts to explain different viewpoints to one another.
Again, the larger point about active learning is that thinking activity trumps the physical activity. Active learning exercises—even relatively simple ones—should promote knowledge building. If they don’t, they are likely to be active, non-learning experiences. John Dewey, an early proponent of experiential and discovery learning noted that, “We don’t learn from experience. We learn by reflecting on experience.” Active learning is most effective when the experience supports students to interact with and reflect on the subject matter in substantive ways.
References
Barron, B.J., Schwartz, D.L., Vye, N.J., Moore, A., Petrosino, A., Zech, L., Bransford, J.D. and the Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1998. Doing with understanding: Lessons from research on problem- and project-based learning. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, Volume 7, Numbers 3 & 4, 271-311.
Recommended reading. There are many books and articles about how to use active learning in the college classroom. One of my favorites is Collaborative Learning Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty by Elizabeth Barkley, K. Pat Cross and Claire Major. Jossey-Bass Publisher.
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