Active Learning Strategies

Active Learning Strategies

Active learning strategies are used to increase the engagement of students and make them active participants in their daily learning.  If they see, they forget.  If they hear, they remember.  If they do, they understand.  90% more is learned and understood from students actively doing their learning.  Active learning is involving students in their learning in ways that increase their comprehension and absorption of content and skills.  The uses in the classroom are numerous but some examples are grouping students strategically in pairs or groups, helping them discover their own prior knowledge about a subject, increasing movement throughout lessons, and finally introducing ways to check for understanding throughout the lessons.  Think, Pair, Share is a great strategy to begin using if you are new to the idea of active learning.  Students are encouraged to think about the topic, pair with another student to talk about the topic, and then ultimately share with each other and/or the whole group their thoughts about the topic.  

This leads us to a very valuable tool that you can easily introduce to your teaching.  Signal cards!  By using signal cards, you can quickly assess how the lesson is going, where your students are in their understanding, and then you, as a teacher, will know where to go next in the lesson.  Students can quickly grasp the idea of communicating how they are feeling about their understanding when given just a couple of choices to express their opinion.  Signal cards also empower students to feel as if they have ownership of their learning along with their peers and the teacher.  You can also use a graphic organizer that contains 3 columns to assess students throughout your lessons and after the lessons.  When those columns are labeled as follows:  What I Knew, What I Know, What I Still Want To Know.  This allows for assessment to take place before, during, and after instruction.  This technique allows the teacher to get a great amount of information about how the students are thinking and whether the lesson that was taught was successful.  This is then used to drive future instruction.  

Something I learned about this subject that I did not know is that learning journals can be very good at teaching students about reflecting on their learning and when students write those thoughts down they internalize that information and begin to understand how to set goals to improve.

Learning journals can be used in any subject area on a regular basis.  

Math Journals At Work

 Thanks for reading,

Shannon