Teaching Strategies for Active Learning

Active Learning Strategies in Face-to-Face Courses

IDEA Paper #53 by Barbara J. Mills from the University of Texas at San Antonio

Active Learning is a means of engaging students in the process of doing, and thinking about what they are doing. The advantages to active learning include that students are more inclined to want to learn in the classroom and work more willingly toward goals set up by the teacher. Active learning becomes at times difficult to implement, or consider implementing, for instructors who might be fearful that through removing themselves from the lecture model they are giving up control to the students in the room.

Mills discusses six strategies for promoting a culture of active learning in the classroom:

  1. Think-Aloud Pair Problem Solving (TAPPS)
  2. Three-Step Interview
  3. Think-Pair-Share
  4. Visible Quiz (Staley, 2003)
  5. Value Line
  6. Send/Pass-a-problem

While these strategies in no way represent a definitive list of the ways in which active learning can be incorporated, they give us someplace to start.

Additional Resources and Strategies for implementing Active Learning:

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