Hands-on Learning

Classroom collaboration

Teachers use active learning activites to engage students

Lily Thomas thomalil000@hsestudents.org

During a recent economics class, senior Dane Cochran envisioned a pizza place in di erent types of economies. He had fun during the activity, as he found it both interesting and engaging. Activities like this can be classi ed as active learning. According to the University of Minnesota’s Center for Educational Innovation, active learning is an instructional approach that works to engage students in the learning process. Some examples of active learning activities include group work, case studies and debates. “I have found that hands-on and interactions with fellow students seems to really stick with students more,” world geography and sociology teacher Haley Beauchamp stated. “Having that conversation about a topic versus reading about it or having me talk at you, it may stick longer. It goes from the short-term memory and hits the long-term memory because there’s an experience with it.” Active learning is based on constructivism, a theory of learning that stresses the idea of constructing an understanding of a concept and continuing to build upon it. According to a research paper by the Cambridge Assessment International Education, as knowledge moves from short-term to long-term memory, it becomes associated with mental models called schemas. e goal of active learning involves engaging such schemas and continuing to use them during the learning process. ere are several bene ts of incorporating active learning. For example, as stated on Cornell University’s website, active learning builds self-esteem, gets students thinking about the material and creates a sense of community in the classroom. Studies by Northeastern University show that active learning activities are twice as e ective at ingraining a conceptual understanding as opposed to more traditional methods such as lectures and taking notes. Furthermore, Scott Freeman and his colleagues at the University of Washington found in a study that students in traditional lecture classes were one and a half times more likely to fail their class than those in classes with active learning activities. “Right now my focus, just coming into this year and not being able to do things for a year and a half, is to get active,” Beauchamp said. “Engagement, students talking to each other, partners, groups, I de nitely want to go for that as much as I can for as long as I can. At the same time, I’m tweaking what I normally do and always refreshing what I do in my classroom.” Some teachers have taken advantage of the bene ts of active learning. In sociology, students played musical chairs in a way that demonstrated a sociological theory. In Spanish classes, sometimes the class gets in groups and holds competitions. In senior Ella Belsley’s zoology class, students lled out a dichotomous key by going around and examining di erent species in jars. Belsley found that physically seeing the animals rather than looking at a at picture made it easier to understand the di erent speci cations. “We all had to work together and problem-solve, then say what kind of di erent variations the animals had and look at them to nd the variations,” Belsley said. While active learning works well for some, especially visual learners, there are also students who prefer traditional class activities such

“Right now my focus, just coming into this year and not being able to do things for a year and a half, is to get active,” Beauchamp said.

While taking a non-traditional partner test on Sept. 8, seniors Bryce Williams and Casey McLeod get clari cation on a question from Haley Beauchump. Photo by Lily Thomas.

During a class activity to learn about socialization theories and how others percieve you, senior Jenna Piccininno takes a picture of herself during a sociology class on Sept. 14. Photo by Lily Thomas.

as taking notes. Teachers like Beauchamp recognize this and try to incorporate both styles of teaching to cater to the multiple types of students in her class. “Everyone’s got their own di erent learning style, some people are more hands-on than visual or vocal,” Cochran stated. “As long as the class is engaging, I think that will help people learn better and possibly raise their grades.” Cochran wishes that more active learning activities were a part of U.S. history and math classes. Going forward, Beauchamp plans on incorporating activities such as a simulation in her world geography class and a “day in the life” activity for her sociology class. “For students, the experience in the classroom goes a lot further if you could help with the engagement,” Beauchamp said. “It opens up a conversation that lets a teacher really dive into more aspects of the content that they’re trying to give. As teachers, we are working incredibly hard to give you that experience in the classroom, we just de nitely need it from the other side.”