1. Facilitating Active Learning Clare MilsomMartyn StewartAcademic Enhancement Unit

2. Aim To provide an evidence-based rationale for active learning Outcomes Recognise the purpose of active learning Recognise how to structure a teaching session that actively engages students Identify strategies to promote student engagement Board of study next week – ant more reps – please?

4. Assignments, Communication, Time

5. Comments of ‘mirror’ year 1 and year 2 surveys ‘ (staff) present their lectures with enthusiasm and create a good teaching atmosphere’. ‘Many lecturers have great knowledge and "poor" teaching skills’ ‘Don't always feel challenged. Some lectures the slides are just read aloud, nothing more to add.’ ‘Some staff find it difficult to engage students in lectures’ ‘As there are so many people in the lectures it sometimes feels that it is impersonal and that I am just a number.’ ‘Its annoying when you turn up to a lecture and the lecturer only reads off the power point defeating the whole point of going to the lecture, what is stopping me from just reading the power point of blackboard and staying at home?’

6. What happens when we learn? Sensory register Immediate memory Working memory Long-term memory

7. Huge volume of information enters brain 40,000 bits per second. 98% discarded Sensory register filters out what is unnecessary but tuned to be alert to ‘danger’. Distraction or anxiety in classroom direct attention away from learning Sensory register

8. Key to learning and instructional design Links to individual learning styles & transferring information to memory Working memory Do you consider yourself a ‘visual’ or ‘aural’ learner? Write down your preference

9. Retention During a Learning Episode Prime-time 1 Prime-time 2 Degree of retention Down-time New information Closure (Summarise) Practice (Reflect / apply) 0 10 20 30 40 Time in Minutes (Sousa 2000)

10. Approximate ratio of prime-times to down-time during a learning episode 20 Min. 40 Min. Lesson length 80 Min. 0 20 40 60 80 Time in Minutes Prime-time 1 Down-time Prime-time 2 (Sousa 2000)

11. Approximate ratio of prime-times to down-time during a learning episode 20 Min. 40 Min. Lesson length 80 Min. 0 20 40 60 80 Time in Minutes Prime-time 1 Down-time Prime-time 2 (Sousa 2000)

12. Impact on learning Engagement and performance (Liu and Stengel 2011); (Prather and Brissenden 2009) Combat conformity and shyness (Stowell et al. 2010) Student-reported increase in attention (Bunce et al. 2010) Students report as ‘fun’ (Bachman and Bachman 2011)

13. Iterative (grouped) – stage 1 To which group does this fossil belong? Bivalve Brachiopod Trilobite Anomorph

14. Iterative (grouped) – stage 2 Note: it is symmetrical across the valves. Change your mind? Bivalve Brachiopod Trilobite Anomorph

15. Iterative (grouped) – stage 3These fossils were found in a quarry in North Wales. What do they suggest about the age of the rocks? < 65Ma 65 – 250 Ma > 250Ma

17. Develops a classroom consciousness

18. Changes delivery – contingent or ‘just-in-time’ teaching.

19. Makes content count.

22. Instant rapport

23. Immediate emotional engagement (Stowell and Nelson 2007).

24. Improves the teaching (and learning) much more quickly.

25. Raised assessment scores (Mayer et al. 2009) also (King and Joshi 2008 – gender)Builds a Learning Community ‘There is nothing like teaching a group of happy, smiling, switched-on students’

26. Schemas & assimilation City centre shops Schema a mental structure or framework which encompasses memories, ideas, concepts & programmes for action pertinent to a particular topic (definition by Banyard & Grayson, 2000)

27. Stewart (2011) Evaluating effect of using concept mapping in lectures to develop complex thinking Analysis of structure within reports: % of scripts assigned to structural levels

28. Bachman, L.and Bachman, C. (2011) A Study of Classroom Response System Clickers: Increasing Student Engagement and Performance in a Large Undergraduate Lecture Class on Architectural Research, Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 22 (1)5-21 Briggs, C.L. and Keyek-Franssen, D. (2010) Clickers and CATs: Using Learner Response Systems for Formative Assessments in the Classroom, EDUCAUSE Quarterly 33(4). Bunce,Di, Flens, E.AandNeiles, K. (2010) How Long Can Students Pay Attention in Class? A Study of Student Attention Decline Using Clickers. Journal of Chemical Education, 87(12), 1438-1443 DeBourgh, G.A. (2008) Use of classroom ‘clickers’ to promote reasoning skills. Nurse Education in Practice, 8, 76-87. King, D.B. and Joshi, S. (2008) Gender differences and the uses and effectiveness of personal response devices. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 17, 544-552. Howard-Jones, P.A. & Demetriou, S. (2009), ‘Uncertainty and engagement with learning games’, Instructional Science, vol. 37, pp. 519-536. Liu, W. and Stengel, D.N. (2011) Improving Student Retention and Performance in Quantitative Courses Using Clickers. international Journal for Technology in Mathematics Education, 18 (1)51-58

29. Mayer, R.E. et al. (2009) Clickers in college classrooms: fostering learning with questioning methods in large lecture classes. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 34, 51-57. Mollborn, S. and Hoekstra A. (2010) A Meeting of Minds” Using Clickers for Critical Thinking and Discussion in Large Sociology Classes Teaching Sociology 38(1) 18-27 Morling, B et al. (2008) Efficacy of personal response systems in large introductory psychology classes. Teaching of Psychology, 35, 45-50. Peterson, B (2008) Classroom performance systems, library instruction and instructional design. Project Muse, 8(3), 1-10. Prather, E. And Brissenden, G. (2009) Clickers as Data Gathering Tools and Students' Attitudes, Motivations, and Beliefs on Their Use in This Application Astronomy Education Review, 8(1)103-110 Piaget, J . (1970) ‘Piaget’s theory’, in PH Mussen (ed.), Carmichael’s Manual of Child Psychology, 3rd edn, vol. 1, Wiley & Sons, New York. Sousa, D.A. (2000) How the brain learns, Corwin Press.

30. Stewart, M. (2011) Joined up thinking? Evaluating the use of concept‐mapping to develop complex system learning, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, iFirst, DOI:10.1080/02602938.2010.534764 Stowell, J., Oldham, T., Bennet, D (2010) Personal author, compiler, or editor name(s); click on any author to run a new search on that Using Student Response Systems ("Clickers") to Combat Conformity and Shyness. Teaching of Psychology, 37(2)135-140 Stowell, J. and Nelson, J.M. (2007) Benefits of electronic audience response systems on student participation, learning and emotion. Teaching of Psychology, 34, 253-258. Sullivan, R. (2008) Principles for constructing good clicker questions: going beyond rote learning and stimulating active engagement with course content. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 37, 335-347.