Three teaching things: week of October 4
In this issue: active learning defined (for Biology); ideas for facilitating online active learning; and a digital bulletin board.
Issue #20
Three Teaching Things is a weekly newsletter compiled by Gavan Watson, which shares three different teaching and learning resources (papers, resources or tools) worth your attention.
1. The paper
Demystifying the Meaning of Active Learning in Postsecondary Biology Education
I linked to a paper in issue #17 that showed that active learning seemed to reduce student achievement gaps in undergrad STEM courses. This week’s recently published paper continues in the STEM active learning vein: the gap that the paper sough to address was the lack of a single definition of the term “active learning” within the context of biology. So not to bury the lede, after reviewing literature and surveying members of Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research, the authors propose the following definition (p.6):
Active learning is an interactive and engaging process for students that may be implemented through the employment of strategies that involve metacognition, discussion, group work, formative assessment, practicing core competencies, live-action visuals, conceptual class design, worksheets, and/ or games.
One finding that I found interesting: of the 148 papers the authors reviewed, the majority did not define active learning (!). Other goodies: the authors have included the (over twenty) definitions of active learning they pulled from the literature in Table 2 (p. 6). Finally, the authors link to a appendix of active learning strategies they found within the literature. I’ll note that this list of activities, while making reference to very biological concepts like meiosis, could easily be adapted to other disciplines.
Driessen, E. P., Knight, J. K., Smith, M. K., & Ballen, C. J. (2020). Demystifying the Meaning of Active Learning in Postsecondary Biology Education. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 19(4), ar52. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.20-04-0068
2. The resource
Online Active Learning Resource
At the risk of looking like I planned a theme this week, I’ll continue with active learning by sharing a Padlet curated by the folx behind the Active Learning Network (“…a group of people from around the world who share an interest in active approaches to learning.”).
The Online Active Learning Resource, includes ideas on how to facilitate active learning using online tools, but also links to the organization’s webinars (e.g. online active learning with large groups). You can read more about the resource on the network’s own blog.
3. The tool
Padlet
Describing itself as a digital bulletin board, Padlet has found a place in academics’ toolkit as a tool to (broadly speaking) facilitate student collaboration. Personally, I’m not as familiar with it, but there’s a bit of lit that supports its use (as a tool to facilitate interactive debates, or collaborative writing, or increase engagement in lectures [pdf alert]).
I’ve demo’d Padlet in the past by showing how it could be used to facilitate an “exit ticket” activity like the muddiest point, and I actually think it’s well-suited for a classroom activity like this (as it does not require an account for students to add material to the Padlet…this ease of access could also be a disincentive for those concerned with poor student etiquette that can come from anonymity).
n.b.: Padlet’s pricing scheme follows a freemium model, and users are limited to three padlets before they’re required to pay for more access.