Designing for Action
If you read our weekly messages, or other resources about teaching, you’ve probably seen the term “active learning” used many times. Simply put, the goal of active learning is for students to actively engage in meaningful work as part of the process of learning. In a classroom, it might involve solving problems, analyzing examples, discussing concepts, reflecting on an experience, or a wide range of other activities. You likely already include active learning in your teaching.
Decades of research from a variety of disciplines shows that active learning has many benefits, including both cognitive and social-emotional benefits for students, as well as improved student success. That said, the efficacy of active learning can depend on the design and facilitation of the activities and students’ full engagement in them. It requires some planning as well as some attention to creating the conditions in which students feel motivated to participate.
This means that if we want our students to learn more, we have to resist the temptation to only tell. This doesn’t mean that we never talk, or even that we never lecture. It just means we also deploy our expertise to design experiences and activities that lead to learning, and to create opportunities for practice and feedback. We can align the activities we design with what students most need to take away from each class session.
To design activities effectively, we start by asking ourselves questions: What should students learn and what can they do that will facilitate that learning? What do they need to think about separately and together? What do they need to practice? For ideas and examples, you can check out our Active Learning Strategy Toolbox or our Learning-Centered Activities resource.
In-class activities might involve one task or a series of tasks. Students might work individually or in groups. The work they do might be graded or ungraded. However you design the activity, it will be important to make the plans transparent for students. In other words, they need to know the purpose of the activity, what they’re supposed to do at each step, and what successful work (in this case, engagement in the activity) might look like. A thoughtful and transparent activity design goes a long way toward a good learning experience. Here are a few design and facilitation tips that we hope will help:
- Set Norms. As early in the semester as possible, create an expectation that students will be actively learning and interacting during class time. (Sometimes students expect that only the professor will be active and that they should be silent in class.)
- Give clear instructions. Provide clear activity instructions, prompts, examples, etc. both orally and in writing. You can put these on a PowerPoint slide, write them on the white board, share them as a handout, or include them on Canvas. (It’s normal for students to forget the instructions or questions if we only share them by speaking.)
- Create comfort. If students will work together in class, you can help them get over the initial awkwardness of forming and working in groups. It’s best if you form the groups yourself, either randomly or according to a particular strategy. Then, you can ask students to introduce themselves as the first step in the activity instructions. You can also consider assigning group member specific roles, or allowing them to choose roles themselves.
- Think about time. Especially for a multi-step activity, you’ll need to estimate how much time each step will take. This will be a process of trial and error; activity facilitation gets better with each semester. Eventually, you’ll have a good idea of how long to allow for each step. Having a clock or a timer that you can check from any location in the room is also helpful.
- Think about transitions. How should students transition into the activity, from one step to another, and back out of the activity into the larger group? Some faculty use PowerPoint slides for each step. Others use the lights in the classroom to signal transitions. Some have a signal where they raise their hand and get quiet, and anyone who sees them also raises their hand and gets quiet. Soon, everyone has a hand up and is paying attention to what to do next.
- Bring it all together. After students do an activity alone, in pairs, or in small groups, it’s helpful to come back together to share out in some way, to have some whole-class discussion, and/or to make meaning of what they did. This can be an opportunity for you to check in on what they did, provide feedback, or expand on or clarify some topics. It can also be helpful to ask them to reflect on what they learned. They might do this by speaking, writing, answering a question, or taking a survey.
- Use technology. There are many ways to use technology to facilitate in-class activities. In very large classes, technology can make some activities possible that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. For more information on in-class polling and other strategies, you can explore this resource from ODL.
- Incorporate AI (or don’t). When students need to do the thinking themselves, it’s important that they not use generative AI instead. That said, AI tools can be helpful to use in a wide variety of activities. For clarifying whether and how students should use AI during class, FSU provides guidance here.
As Terry Doyle insists, “the one who does the work does the learning.” The classroom is an important place for students to do some work because their instructor and peers are present to support and draw out their thinking. If you’d like support to incorporate more active learning into a course you teach, please contact us at pro-teaching@fsu.edu. We look forward to working with you!