Group items tagged

Excerpt: "Effective online STEM courses integrated active learning activities, interactive engagement strategies, and robust assessments. In particular, assessment design significantly impacted students' self-perceived learning and learning satisfaction for students of all populations. . . . Online STEM instructors are strongly encouraged to utilize the Universal Design for Learning principles."

Harvard's online repository for active learning. Searchable by activity type (e.g., discussion, game, peer instruction, debate, presentation), subject area, timeline, learning goals, student scope (individual, pair, group, or whole-class), final product and assessment type. Site also summarizes research on active learning by activity type.

Lessons from a Texas A&M professor who flipped a 400-student "Introduction to Ancient Rome" course.

I'd love to hear some real world examples that address one point in the article: "Content delivery is the easy part. The hard part is figuring out what to do in class that keeps students engaged, and motivated to prepare for class." If anyone in our group knows of some specific tricks teachers usually employ for this, please let me know. (lil' quizzes? Q&A discussions? or something more interesting?) I'm wondering if there are other sorts of multimedia activities I could make that would serve similar function.

Warren, good question! The peer instruction approach of Eric Mazur et al. (see http://mazur.harvard.edu/research/detailspage.php?rowid=8) is a popular in-class technique. Here are some of other methods OSU hybrid faculty use to link online and face-to-face spheres: 1 - A low-stakes weekly quiz online prior to each class meeting. 2 - A discussion that flows from online to face-to-face and back again. 3 - A very short online essay turned in before each class meeting that builds on the online content, and is tied directly to in-class discussion or group work that follows. 4 - An interactive multimedia lesson online that provides a foundation for or extends in-class learning. (Examples: I recommend looking at Simon Driver and Megan McDonald's hybrid EXSS 444--I can connect you.) 5 - Group work online (e.g., formulating a debate position or a solution to real-world problem) that feeds into the next f2f class activity. 6 - A quiz at the start of each class meeting based on the online content. Whatever the method, a key is that the learning activities online channel rather directly into the in-class activities and vice versa. Think of it as a long ping-pong volley between learning activities in the online and f2f spheres from the first day of the term until the final exam or project.

Very interesting, sound study. Even though this is done in a face to face environment, the takeaway most likely remains the same - students don't know what effective teaching looks and feels like. Quote: "Compared with students in traditional lectures, students in active classes perceived that they learned less, while in reality they learned more."

Timely! Regan Gurung just published a CTL blog post about this study: http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/osuteaching/2019/12/16/eating-your-peas-like-active-learning-not-preferred-but-better-for-you/

Active learning strategies for synchronously teaching students in the classroom and students participating remotely via videoconferencing.

"Instructional designers are consumers (and sometimes producers) of the learning science literature - and they bring this knowledge base into their work with faculty. Once faculty have the opportunity to learn and apply learning science research for their online courses, they will want to do the same for their residential courses."

Article about a new non profit for Active Learning. http://aalasinternational.org/. They also have a free publication called the Flipped Learning Review. http://flr.flglobal.org/

Abstract: This is the largest and most comprehensive metaanalysis of undergraduate STEM education published to date. The results raise questions about the continued use of traditional lecturing as a control in research studies, and support active learning as the preferred, empirically validated teaching practice in regular classrooms.

"One of the biggest misunderstandings about online learning is that it has to be limited to things that can be done in front of a computer screen. Instead, we need to reimagine online courses as something that can enable the interplay between offline activities and digital augmentation. . . . We need to focus . . . more on finding ways to robustly capture evidence of offline learning that can be validated and critiqued at scale by peers and experts online."

Excerpt: "In order for video to serve as a productive part of a learning experience . . . it is important for the instructor to consider three elements for video design and implementation: 1. cognitive load 2. non-cognitive elements that impact engagement 3. features that promote active learning."

Online Learning | Feature 6 Ways to Be a Better Online Teacher --- check out #3 for a creative 'active-learning' activity that has students tweeting as various characters as they read texts from the Crusades.

Many ideas for incorporating active learning into on-campus and online classes.

Though this post refers to in-class activities, the techniques are readily transferable to online teaching and learning.

"Students who completed the online homework activities performed significantly better on a common comprehensive final exam than students who did not participate. . . . These findings suggest responsive online homework in general, and a responsive-adaptive learning system driven by knowledge space theory in particular, has a significant positive impact on student performance in the first-quarter general chemistry course."

A resource for translating seat time and credit hour requirements to online activities from Penn State