Two Pills Tips: New Year, New Learning Strategies!

New year, new active learning strategies! 

New year, new active learning! If you are reviewing your material to teach for spring semester, jazz it up! This is the time!   

Resources: 

https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/active-learning/ 

https://www.ajpe.org/doi/full/10.5688/ajpe759186 

Active learning definitions: 

-Instructional activities involving students in doing things and thinking about what they are doing (Bonwell and Eison, 1991) 

-Approaches that focus on developing students’ skills than on transmitting information and require that students do something—read, discuss, write 

 -Students’ efforts to actively construct their knowledge 

-Opposite of passive learning…aka reading slides to students 

Here are some strategies to get you started: 

Think-Pair-Share 

-Give students a problem/case 

-Students first think about problems alone (think) 

-Students then discuss the topic with another student (pair)  

-Students discuss the topic with a larger group (share) 

Muddiest Point 

-Students spend 1-2 minutes answering questions about anything that remains confusing/misunderstood about the lecture  

Games 

-Select a game that you like, select objectives for the lecture/session, then overlay the content onto the framework of the game! 

Audience Response Systems (ARS)/Clickers 

-Can be integrated into a classroom session for a quick formative or summative assessment 

Case Studies 

-Require students to apply their knowledge, skills, and attitudes to solve a problem relating to the course material 

-Helps prepare students for case-based exam questions