Comment on James Dowdalls's post: I would love to know more about this, James.
I really like the Checklist to Critique Your Group Project and plan to use it to help guide students when they develop projects collaboratively.
In active learning, it is important that we communicate early and often the demands of the students. Many of our students have not yet had experience working in situations that require prolonged and consistent excellence. It is our responsibility to create momentum within them
Using rubrics for assessment is a great tool to save time and help me be sure I'm covering everything the student should receive feedback about to achieve course objectives.
This section provided a lot of good ideas for incorporating active learning into the classroom. I specifically liked the cartoon/comic strip/storytelling idea.
I already give personalized and encouraging feedback as I believe in specific kinds of feedback. Since I grade English assignments, when I receive a paper, I make sure the student knows what they did well. If something is incorrect or has issues, I always word it as though the paper needs to be addressed. Pulling the negativity away from the student themselves to focus on their work makes them less likely to feel targeted or rejected by feedback when it's really there to help them improve!
Choose 2-3 active learning activities to use in a class. I love to teach students who are prepared for class and ready to discuss points of leaning vs. be lectured. Giving student opportunities speak and present to other students items they have learned increase understanding and application in real world scineros.
Active learning also helps widen their perspectives by bouncing off one another's opinions as they work in groups.
There are different types of strategies for engaging a learner such as reversed instruction, periodic pausing, flipped-classroom, and using mobile technology. The last three are elements I am more comfortable in developing courses around to help facilitate engaging learners.
I definitely think I would be a better instructor if I communicated more frequently with my students throughout the week.
The section reviewing low risk engagement strategies was the most helpful. I have spent some time thinking about ways to use these strategies in my course this year. First, I want to make sure I relate the content to students' lives. I want to ensure the student sees some relevance to "real life" in what they are learning. I also want to ensure I share examples of good work to model and aspire to. This was always very helpful to me when I was a student. Lastly, I plan to give targeted and personal feedback on assignments. This will not only help the student learn but will also cultivate the personal relationship that helps students learn and grow.
Engagement is the key to success in the active learning environment. I will be looking to use more group activities in the classroom which cause the students to do research as a group, develop a presentation, deliver the presentation, and have another group provide feedback.
Rubrics make expectations and completion of the assignment very clear for students.
Help with time management by being consistent with assessments form the beginning. Guild by having students lead themselves - learn each other's strengths and weaknesses then share project duties. They need to understand the material not just memorize it.
Student involvement and engagement are the keys to active learning. SO TRUE!
The key elements of active learning are Reading, Reflective Writing, Displaying and Doing. It is essential that instructors utilize these elements in their coursework.
In my coursework, we have readings that provide the student with creative inspiration as well as an in-depth description of the tasks they will later be doing themselves. We then ask the students to reflect on those readings and what they learned from them. Later I show my students examples of professionals in the field completing the task that we are soon going to complete in our projects. Lastly, we work on the projects as a class. This successfully covers all four of those elements.
I am going to incorporate more of the active learning modules I have found, recently, in my courses. Also, I am going to create a welcome/introductory video to walk students through the structure of the course content/activities. This should help with motivating students by establishing a positive instructor presence. I will work to strengthen student engagement and reinforce instructor presence using positive, encouraging statements in timely discussion feedback.
It is important to use different modalities to reach every student such as video feedback, audio feedback and written feedback. Be encouraging as an instructor and comment on their work regularly, students need to see examples so they know what the instructor is looking for.
The thing that stuck with me was time management. I have seen this so many times - students in an online class don't really take into account that they have to meet deadlines and still show up for class.
Active learning requires modification of traditional methods of assessment. Rubrics can aid in this process. The use of technology can assist in the mastery of course content in a student-centered approach..diversification of skill sets within group projects can lead to students showcasing their strengths in order to aid the group as a whole.
