Active Learning - A Key To Success

Active Learning - A Key To Success http://www.starteaching.com/RozinaJumani.htm

In the words of Christensen, Garvin & Sweet, “To teach is to engage students in Learning.” However the engagement of students is possible in various ways. My school teachers use a traditional way of teaching as they think the course content can not be finished otherwise.  On the other hand, there are quite a few teachers who believe that using innovative approaches and presenting concepts in the form of activities helps students to develop the taught concepts gradually and also seeks confidence in participating and communicating their ideas with their colleagues in a better way. Thus, they advocate that through employing such methods, students' learning can be improved and teaching remains stimulating work. My own association with the teaching profession is for more than a decade; I began my journey as an average teacher who had basic teaching skills. Other than that, I had nothing to offer until I received professional training and certificate programs that enabled me to think about teaching and learning, and with this my role expanded as ‘Teacher Educator”. As Senge (1990) says, ‘Through learning we recreate ourselves’. This paradigm shift in my thinking and teaching brought many changes in me and I embarked on a whole new arena where as a researcher I investigated how children learn. Though I was sure that merely listening to the lectures and copying from the board won’t bring any learning and excitement among students, I started employing innovative activities, and that engagement brought a significant change in my students . In the words of ‘Felder & Brent (1999); Hannula (2003); McConnell, Steer & Owens (2003) “Active learning incorporates strategies that require students to participate directly in their learning- to apply newly acquired knowledge to solve problems, to question and test theories, brainstorm, solve problems, hypothesize, summarize, or to critically think and interact with colleagues”. As the term ‘Activity based learning’ encompasses a wide range of aspects - thus it is considered a relative term where every reader infers the meaning as per his/her own experience. In order to avoid the ambiguity, the understanding of the term is required to be shared. The term ‘activity based learning and teaching’ means students and teachers both are considered ‘Learner’ and all play an equal role in constructing a new idea/concept about things. Hence both are active and mutually support each other in the process of learning. The motivation of initiatives brings confidence among learners and they construct their own meaning about the concept/idea. According to Roth (1990) “Learning is enhanced when it is built on student’s prior knowledge and experiences allowing learners to link what they already know to new information to be learned” Activity based learning can be viewed as following: 1.        Active Learning is defined as any strategy "that involves students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing". 2.        “Constructivism” it usually means encouraging students to use active techniques (experiments, real-world problem solving) to create more knowledge and then to reflect on and talk about what they are doing and how their understanding is changing “Hands-on and learning by experience are powerful ideas, and we know that engaging students actively and thoughtfully in their studies pays off in better learning”. (Rutherford, 1993, p. 5). Thus it is more important to enable students to think for themselves then to merely fill their heads with the right answer .