Susan Sgroi

Critical thinking activities should include complicated topics with many perspectives and issues. Students can bring their own personal experiences with these topics, they can reflect upon various perspectives, and can relate these ideas to their peers. This is improtant for writing courses so that students can reflect and prepare their ideas before writing a formal paper. 

Active Learning should include reading, reflective writing, displaying, and doing. Students must be given paramaters, requirements, and time allotment before setting out to complete an assignment. The lessons should be relevant to students and demonstrate a reason for why the assignment is important to their education. 

The use of technology must be equitable. All students need to have quality access to technologies used in an online classroom. They also need to understand at the strat of the course how much time will need to be spent on assignments and studying. Students must take responsibility for their own learning. 

Active Learning is student centered learning. Materials and activities must be engaging, relevant to the reality of the student and should build a sense of community in the classroom. Teaching styles have evolved away from "talking head" teacher centered techniques since the 1990's. It is important to update teaching styles to stuentd centered learning because this style has proven to be more effective when educating the contemporary learner.