Additional Resources
The Center for Teaching and Learning offers a variety of tutorials and other learning opportunities for you. As stated in the introduction, there are a number of tutorials that specifically deal with active learning. You can find more information about active learning and a wide range of other education topics at the ITeach Center.
Here are some other helpful resources for you as you explore creative ways to make learning more active: Click here to read other comments about active learning. Click here to find another source that addresses "Creating Excitement in the Classroom." The following are additional useful publications by Mel Silberman: Active Learning: 101 Strategies to Teach Any Subject This book offers 101 activities include ice-breakers for the beginning of class, strategies for the middle of a lesson, and concluding exercises to foster student reflection and future application. You will also find activities that are designed to enliven learning, deepen understanding, and promote retention. The author describes active learning and how to prepare a classroom for it. Teaching Actively offers a comprehensive eight-step plan that you can follow to inspire active learning. It is applicable for all levels of education and contains ready-to-use ideas for bolstering your students’ involvement in their education. In addition to the information from Mel Silberman, other research gives us 'food for thought' when we think about our behavior in classes. For example: Ruhl, K. L., Hughes, C. A., & Schloss, P. J. (1987, Winter). Using the pause procedure to enhance lecture recall. Teacher Education and Special Education, 10, 14-18. Read about this study. The implication of this research is staggering, for it essentially says that if we talk six minutes less, students learn more. Undoubtedly these counterintuitive results stem from two things: 1) the short lectures (12-18 minutes) are consistent with the research that suggests that students’ ability to retain information falls off substantially after 10-20 minutes; and 2) by engaging in an activity that reinforces the information presented, student learning should be increased. This study of Ruhl and others clearly suggests that we have an opportunity to include short, active-learning activities into our lectures with no loss to the content learned. Indeed, students seem to learn more from the process. Previous: Quiz Next: Back to CTL Tutorials
 Weave Course Content into Icebreakers This is a piece by Mel Silberman that describes how common icebreaker activities (human scavenger hunts and things of that nature) can be shifted from focusing on personal information towards focusing on course content from the first day of a class.
Other Texts Here are some additional resources that you might find useful. They all broadly fall under the window of active learning and active teaching.
|
