Active Learning: Just Do It!

    

 

Get Active 

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     Anyone that spends a significant amount of time around children will notice the difference in the way kids behave now that technology has consumed our society. Parents give their children smart phones or iPads at younger and younger ages, which often times will act as a baby sitter as the child becomes obsessed with the flashing lights and instant gratification provided by game apps. This has made it difficult for educators to hold on to their old ways of giving lectures while students copy notes on paper. Students need to be actively engaged in their learning process, working on concepts that are meaningful to them and require them to think. The University of Minnesota defines "active learning" as "any approach to instruction in which all students are asked to engage in the learning process," and this phrase has come up constantly in my school when planning future curriculum. Most of our classes are block periods that last 84-minutes, and it has become very apparent that middle schoolers will check out if they have to sit and listen to a teacher talk this entire time.
     Active learning needs to be happening in classrooms if schools want to keep their students passionate about getting an education. Two big projects I've been working on teachers with is building an inquiry mindset in our learners, and implementing math stations. Inquiry Mindset is a book by Trevor MacKenzie where he describes inquiry-based learning. He focuses on making learning experiences meaningful for students, saying "all students deserve a chance to dig into their passions and curiosities." I really like this idea of giving students something to think about, then allowing them to direct the next steps of their learning. To allow for this we are looking into different student-friendly research databases that are full of content and allows for students to investigate a topic of their choosing. In our block-period math classes was are trying out having the students work in stations. Even if you are an extremely engaging teacher, 80-plus minutes is a long time for anyone to sit in one spot learning. Breaking a class up and having students rotate around to different stations makes it much more difficult for a kid to check out of a lesson. Technology makes this a lot easier, as one of the stations could be having students go to Khan Academy or IXL.com, either to review a concept they didn't understand the first time, or if they are ready for a challenge they can work on lessons from the next unit or grade-level. This has been great for students with a growth mindset who always want to push themselves to the next level.
      The active learning example I had to look at for class was called "One Year Told in Six Words", which was a fun project where students from Coonley Elementary School made a slide that contained a six word summary of their year. I made a Padlet below that will help you dive deeper into the project, but it was an example of active learning because kids were able to express themselves with six words and share their creativity on a slide. The project was put out for the school to see and posted on the school's Twitter, which definitely made it more meaningful for the students. As the world continues to find ways to keep children constantly entertained and distracted, it will be very important for teachers to consider how they are going to keep students interested. That starts with active learning.