Active Learning

Active learning encourages students to actively engage with content in the classroom to enhance learning and retention. Its application in graduate and undergraduate college courses represents an important advance that improves retention and recall and promotes the development of self-reliance in learning.

Online learning poses significant challenges for both instructors and students. Chief among these is establishing and maintaining student engagement. Consequently, it is incumbent on instructors to integrate activities into the course that engage students and incumbent upon students to embrace those activities.

One of the most effective mechanisms to achieve student engagement is via establishment of a learning community among students and faculty. These activities can occur during synchronous class sessions, such as Think-Pair-Share, and variations thereof, or activities outside of class time, such as online discussions. In addition to breaking up the delivery of content into digestible packets, these activities promote interaction and self-reliance among students. Despite understandable hesitance to participate, students ultimately learn how to trust their colleagues and, more importantly, themselves to think through questions and apply content. Furthermore, they have the opportunity to engage with instructors in productive discussion regarding topics of interest to all. Importantly, these activities are assessible, providing feedback for instructors concerning the effectiveness of the exercise and for students via graded or ungraded evaluations

Think-Pair-Share using Breakout Rooms in Zoom

In the Think-Pair-Share exercise, a question is posed by the instructor that requires the application of content the students are learning in class (or via recent reading). Students consider the question independently for several minutes, then split into groups of two or three to discuss the issue and come up with an answer. One member of each group is chosen to present the answer to the class and a class discussion ensues with moderation by the instructor.

How is this achieved in an online classroom? Assuming that the class is taking place in Zoom, this can be implemented via Breakout Rooms. The instructor poses a question to the class and allows students to consider it independently (Think). Breakout rooms consisting of predetermined groups or participant groups established randomly by Zoom can be set up before class (or created on-the-fly during class) and, at the appropriate time for the exercise, invoked with the click of a button. Students will be moved (virtually) into independent rooms where they will see only the predetermined participants (Pair). The instructor or any other designated individual (TA, etc.) can also visit the breakout rooms on demand. The groups can then be dissolved on demand with a click of a button and students rejoin the full online classroom for the culminating discussion (Share). Importantly, the Think-Pair-Share activity is assessible because the class sessions are recorded and available online for review.

The following resources describe these learning tools and techniques in greater detail. (These are the same links mentioned in the text above.)

• This webpage provides an excellent description of the Think-Pair-Share tool, an effective opportunity for active application within the class setting, with many examples.
• The webpage, “Tips for Creating Effective Online Discussions”, describes methods for creating effective online discussions and provides a detailed rubric for assessment of student performance.
   

Sample Lessons for Active Learning

• The CourseSource website is an extensive and well-designed database of detailed lesson plans for implementing active learning in evidence-based teaching in biology. The database contains detailed descriptions of lessons with relevance for graduate level biology education.
• This website provides collected lesson plans derived from Scientific Teaching workshops. Examples may be applicable to graduate level courses in a range of STEM disciplines.
• This website provides a database of “Teachable Tidbits,” the moniker given to lessons created in the context of the Summer Workshops on Scientific Teaching.