Active Learning Strategies

Active Learning Strategies help to initiate learners

and faculty into effective ways to help learners
engage in activities based on ideas about how
people learn. Multiple active learning strategies
may be used in each of the active learning designs.
Here’s an annotated list of active learning
strategies.
1. Sit & talk with peers nearby
Think-Pair- Share.
1. Define “Think-Pair-Share.” Explain to students that a Think-Pair-Share allows them to
activate their prior knowledge and share ideas about content or beliefs with peers. This
structure gives students a chance to organize their ideas—first in their own minds, then in a
smaller group setting before sharing with the entire group. In a Think-Pair-Share, students
Think individually about the question or idea(s) put forth, Pair up with someone to discuss
their thinking, and then Share their conversation with their table group, and then finally with
the whole group.

2. Display Think-Pair-Share prompts about a concept or topic. Give students 1-2

minutes to think about the prompt on their own. Then discuss with a partner for another few
minutes.

3. Facilitate a whole group discussion.

 Listen to their responses.

 Ask students to elaborate on their thinking by providing explanations, evidence, or
clarifications. Suggested probing questions:
o What makes you think that?
o Please give an example from your experience.
o What do you mean?
 Try to stay neutral in your reaction to students’ comments.
 Invite others to react and respond to ideas by providing alternative viewpoints,
agreements or disagreements. Suggested probing questions:
o Can anyone add something to that comment?
o Who would like to share an alternative opinion?
Quick write
A prompt is posed for students to respond to in writing. Taking only 5 minutes or so, this is a
quick way to accomplish one or more of the following: determine whether or not students
have done the homework assignment, engage students in thinking about the topic that will
be covered in the session, provides the opportunity for students to access their prior
knowledge on a topic. The quick write can be graded to encourage students to do their
reading assignment, or collected to serve as an attendance check.
Turn and Talk
In a turn and talk, a question is posed to the class and students simply turn to the person
next to them to discuss. This can serve as a comfortable way for students to share their
ideas with others and set the stage for them sharing with the larger group. The instructor
doesn’t need to hear all (or any) of the ideas shared– the important aspect of this strategy is
for the peers to share and for individuals to access their prior knowledge about a topic.
Example prompt: Ask students to turn to someone next to them and discuss their responses
to the following question. Tell them to take two minutes to discuss this with their partner with
each person getting some time to talk.
 Part of the challenge of communicating climate change with the public is that there is
disparity between what scientists and the non-scientist public think and know about
climate change.
 Why do you think there is such a disparity
Polling
Having students vote anonymously on what they perceive as the best explanation/answer to
a question,followed by opportunities to discuss their ideas with peers, and then to vote
again leads to greater learning of the material. It is important to have students discuss why
they think their explanation is the most accurate and also why the other explanations
proposed are not accurate. It is also important that the teacher looks at the polling results
and listens to the reasoning of the students in order to determine what further explanations
and summary might need to be made in lecture. There are various tools that can beused for
polling, including Clickers, Socrative.com and Poll.Everywhere.com.
Individual plus Group Quizzes
Give students a quiz that they complete individually and turn in to be graded. Immediately
following the individual quiz, put students in small groups and have them take the quiz
again, but this time they discuss the answers in their group and turn it in for a group score.
Both quizzes are graded and if the group score is higher, the two grades are averaged. The
group score can’t hurt someone if they have a higher individual score. This encourages
individual accountability, and also helps students to better understand the material as they
discuss it with peers. In this way, they keep up with the material, rather than realizing they
don’t totally understand it when they reach the midterm.
Tests/Quizzes with common preconceptions as distractors
Design assessments to include common preconceptions (or misconceptions) that students
often hold. Allow students to answer the question on their own and then discuss their
answer and rationale with a partner. Have them answer the question again after the peer
discussion. Elicit a whole group discussion about why the correct answer is correct and why
the others are not. Common misconceptions students have about STEM topics and
concepts can be found at AAAS, and assessment questions including common
misconceptions as distractors can be found at Braincandy.
Jigsaws
Students work in small groups to read information that has been organized into sections.
Each student inthe group reads one section of the material and then shares that information
with the rest of their group.As they read and share information, they refer to prompts such
as: what do you think each idea means?What is the big idea? How can this idea be applied
to help understand the concept(s)? What questions do you have about what you read?
What do you agree/not agree with?
There are various permutations of jigsaws. One such model include expert and cooperative
groups: Each group can be assigned a particular aspect/part of the overall information –
they read it individually and then discuss in their small “expert” group to make sure they all
understand it. Then new “cooperative”groups are formed made up of one-two students from
each of the original expert groups. In this way, the new groups have an “expert”
representative from each of the original groups so that all of the information is now
represented in the new cooperative group. The “expert” has had a chance to practice
sharing and hearing other viewpoints about the information in their original group, and
therefore likely feels more comfortable sharing in the new group.
Sorting strips
Small bits of information are separated into strips so that students can sort the strips into
various categories, or organize them into a sequence depending on the topic. This strategy
encourages discussion of competing ideas or organizations or order in which a process
would take place. In this case, it is often the discussion and sharing of ideas that is the most
important outcome of the activity.
Partial Outlines/PPTs provided for lecture
Research has shown that students have a better understanding, do better on exams, and
stay more engaged with the content during lecture when they are provided with partial,
rather than complete lecture notes or PowerPoints.
Pausing in lecture
These strategies work towards inserting wait time in lectures for students to reflect on,
discuss and apply ideas just presented and to encourage them to engage actively in the
lecture rather than passively taking notes. These strategies also help students to
understand what they do and don’t understand about the lecture.
 ask students to not take notes as you work through a problem on the board with the
class,followed by 5 minutes for them to copy down board and discuss the
problem/chemical reaction/process with peers
 pause 6-10 seconds after asking a question before calling on a student to respond have
students do a quick write about a concept just covered in lecture (e.g. their
understanding, two questions they have about the concept as presented, what they
would like to know more about etc.); optional, collect the quick write to help you better
 understand what they understood from the lecture and the questions they have and to
keep them engaged
 turn and talks – ask peers to talk to each other about what they do and don’t understand
and/or share with each other what they wrote down in their notes about a particular
concept just covered in lecture. Encourage students to add to their notes from the
discussion
 have students apply their understanding of a concept just covered by working with a
small group around a huddle board. Optional, have a few groups share their work and
elicit reactions and reviews from other students. Summarize findings and scientific
normative explanations.
 Have students do think-pair-shares, polling to keep their mind engaged in the topic and
to share their ideas with their peers for greater meaning-making opportunities.
2. Requires students moving around
Posters & gallery walk
Give groups of students an assignment that they need to work on together and present their
ideas on a sheet of chart paper. Once they have completed their poster, have them display
it on the wall, much like at a scientific poster session. One of their group will stay with the
poster and help to explain it as the class circulates to look at all of the posters. Students
take turns standing by their poster so that each of them have the chance to visit the other
groups’ posters. This sets up a more interactive way of presenting as compared to ppt
presentations.
Fish bowl
A fish bowl allows a small group of students to engage in a discussion about ideas or
concepts that have alternative explanations while the rest of the class observes and takes
notes. An inner circle of students engages in the discussion, while the rest of the class
either sits in an outer circle, or remains in their regular seats and observes. If you have your
class organized into small groups, then the members of each group can tap their respective
teammate and replace them in the inner circle to expand on or provide additional evidence
to support an explanation. Optional: the entire class needs to take part in the inner circle
conversation by the end of the class period.
Idea line up
The idea line up is a structure that allows a teacher to use the diversity of perspectives in
the classroom to generate heterogeneous groups of students for discussion. This diversity
of thinking is a good place from which to develop a classroom climate that supports
argumentation. More student-initiated science talk happens when students are connected
with peers who have opposing perspectives (Clark & Sampson, 2007). The question should
be one about which students have enough prior knowledge/experience to have some
evidence to bring to bear in the discussions which ensue.
How it works: The teacher provides a question that (s)he knows may have a continuum of
responses, especially if it is asked prior to collecting significant amounts of evidence or
before students have the opportunity to synthesize the evidence they have already
collected.
The question is displayed prominently for students to consider. Students are directed to
position themselves on a line to indicate their level of agreement in response to the
question. After the students line up, have students talk to the person next to them so they
can clarify their own thinking on why they positioned themselves on the line in a particular
spot.
Student positions on the line typically indicate a diversity of thinking. The teacher can then
use their positions to form groups of students with differing ideas about the question.
Students then discuss their thinking and reasoning for their responses with the peers with
whom they have been matched.Students should be prompted to listen carefully to each
other’s claims and evidence and respond with evidence to counter or support the claims of
other students in their group. A group claims and evidence chart or small whiteboards can
be used to collect student thinking.
If the activity is used prior to an investigation, students can use the ideas from the initial
discussion to continually weigh against the evidence they gather from their investigations. If
the activity is used after an investigation, but prior to a whole-group meaning-making
discussion, ideas from the small group discussions can be used to prepare for a whole
group discussion.
Four corners
Four corners is used for the same reasons as the idea line up. The only difference is that
students are considering several claims (responses to a question). For example, a teacher
might ask, “Where does most of the mass in a plant come from?” Claims for consideration
might include, “soil,” “air,”“water,” and “sunlight.”
How it works: The teacher displays the question prominently for all to consider. Each corner
of the classroom is assigned one claim, also prominently displayed. Students are asked to
go to the corner of the classroom that has the claim they agree with most. If they think more
than one answer is correct,they should just pick one of the corners they agree with. If they
don’t agree with any claims, they should go to the middle of the room. Once in their corners,
students should discuss with others why they chose that corner to help clarify their thinking.
Have them share and record evidence that supports that claim and why the other claims are
not supported. Optional: have them visit the other corners to see what others thought about
the ideas and the evidence they put forth.
Just as in the idea line up the teacher can use the student positions around the room to
form groups with a diversity of ideas. The rest of the instructions are the same as for
the idea line up.
For information about incorporating technology into your class, which can help with the
incorporation of active learning strategies, check out Incorporating Technology into Your
Teaching.