Active learning, as the name suggests, is a process whereby learners are actively

engaged in the learning process, rather than "passively" absorbing lectures. Active
learning involves reading, writing, discussion, and engagement in solving problems,
analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

Active learning often involves team-based learning, also known as cooperative

learning, wherein partners or group members work together to solve problems. This
ensures that students really understand the concepts being covered. Team learning is
especially beneficial in that ‘weaker’ students are presented with the material from a
source other than the professor (i.e. their partner/group mates) and ‘stronger’ students
reinforce their knowledge by explaining the material to others.

Why is active learning important?

Research has consistently shown that traditional lecture methods, in which professors talk
and students listen, dominate college and university classrooms. It is therefore important
to know the nature of active learning, the empirical research on its use, the common
obstacles and barriers that give rise to faculty members' resistance to interactive
instructional techniques, and how faculty, faculty developers, administrators, and
educational researchers can make real the promise of active learning.

Until recently there has been no common definition of "active learning." Consequently,
many believe that all learning is inherently active and that students are therefore "actively
involved" while listening to formal presentations in the classroom.

Research suggests that the use of active learning techniques (as defined in the
introduction) may have a positive impact upon students' learning. For example, several
studies have shown that students prefer strategies that promote active learning rather than
traditional lectures. Other research evaluating students' achievement has demonstrated
that many strategies promoting active learning are comparable to lectures in promoting
the mastery of content but superior to lectures in promoting the development of students'
skills in thinking and writing.

Further, some cognitive research has shown that a significant number of individuals have
learning styles best served by pedagogical techniques other than lecturing. Development
and implementation of these techniques requires that teachers become knowledgeable
about active learning strategies and alternative approaches to instruction.

How can active learning be incorporated in the

classroom?
The modification of traditional lectures (Penner 1984) is one way to incorporate active
learning in the classroom. Research has demonstrated, for example, that if a faculty
member allows students to consolidate their notes by pausing three times for two minutes
each during a lecture, students will learn significantly more information (Ruhl, Hughes,
and Schloss 1987). Two other simple yet effective ways to involve students during a
lecture are to insert brief demonstrations or short, ungraded writing exercises followed by
class discussion.

Certain alternatives to the lecture format further increase student level of engagement: (1)
the feedback lecture, which consists of two minilectures separated by a small-group
study session built around a study guide, and (2) the guided lecture, in which students
listen to a 20- to 30-minute presentation without taking notes, followed by their writing
for five minutes what they remember and spending the remainder of the class period in
small groups clarifying and elaborating the material.

Discussion in class is one of the most common strategies promoting active learning, with
good reason. If the objectives of a course are to promote long-term retention of
information, to motivate students toward further learning, to allow students to apply
information in new settings, or to develop students' thinking skills, then discussion is
preferable to lecture (McKeachie et al. 1986). Research has suggested, however, that to
achieve these goals faculty must be knowledgeable of alternative techniques and
strategies for questioning and discussion (Hyman 1980) and must create a supportive
intellectual and emotional environment that encourages students to take risks (Lowman
1984).

Several additional strategies promoting active learning have been similarly shown to
favorably influence students' attitudes and achievement. Visual-based instruction, for
example, can provide a helpful focal point for other interactive techniques. In-class
writing is another way to involve students in doing things and thinking about the things
they are doing. Two popular instructional strategies based on problem-solving model
include the case study method of instruction and Guided Design. Other active learning
pedagogies include debates, drama, role playing and simulation, and peer teaching.

It may be implemented by giving students topics they could research and make papers
about it.

What are the barriers?

Certain specific obstacles are associated with the use of active learning, including limited
class time; a possible increase in preparation time; the potential difficulty of using active
learning in large classes; and a lack of needed materials, equipment, or resources.

Perhaps the single greatest barrier of all, however, is the fact that faculty members' efforts
to employ active learning involve risk--the risks that students will not participate, use
higher-order thinking, or learn sufficient content, that faculty members will feel a loss of
control, lack necessary skills, or be criticized for teaching in unorthodox ways. Each
obstacle or barrier and type of risk, however, can be successfully overcome through
careful, thoughtful planning.
What conclusions should be drawn, and what
recommendations made?
An excellent first step is to select strategies promoting active learning that one can feel
comfortable with. Such low-risk strategies are typically of short duration, structured and
planned, focused on subject matter that is neither too abstract nor too controversial, and
familiar to both the faculty member and the students.

Faculty developers can help stimulate and support faculty members' efforts to change by
highlighting the instructional importance of active learning in the newsletters and
publications they distribute. Further, the use of active learning should become both the
subject matter of faculty development workshops and the instructional method used to
facilitate such programs. And it is important that faculty developers recognize the need to
provide follow-up to, and support for, faculty members' efforts to change.

Academic administrators can help these initiatives by recognizing and rewarding

excellent teaching in general and the adoption of instructional innovations in particular.
Comprehensive programs to demonstrate this type of administrative commitment
(Cochran 1989) should address institutional employment policies and practices, the
allocation of adequate resources for instructional development, and the development of
strategic administrative action plans.

Equally important is the need for more rigorous research to provide a scientific
foundation to guide future practices in the classroom. Currently, most published articles
on active learning have been descriptive accounts rather than empirical investigations,
many are out of date, either chronologically or methodologically, and a large number of
important conceptual issues have never been explored. New qualitative and quantitative
research should examine strategies that enhance students' learning from presentations;
explore the impact of previously overlooked, yet educationally significant, characteristics
of students, such as gender, different learning styles, or stage of intellectual development;
and be disseminated in journals widely read by faculty.

In retrospect, it appears that previous classroom initiatives and written materials about
active learning have all too often been isolated and fragmented. The resulting
pedagogical efforts have therefore lacked coherence, and the goal of interactive
classrooms has remained unfulfilled. Through the coordinated efforts of individual
faculty, faculty developers, academic administrators, and educational researchers,
however, higher education in the coming decade CAN make real the promise of active
learning!