TEACHING MATHEMATICS AND ITS APPLICATIONS, Volume 27, No.

3, 2008 116
Advance Access Published on19 July 2008 doi:10.1093/teamat/hrn013

On strategies contributing to active learning

Tatiana Gavalcova
Submitted May 2008; accepted June 2008

Abstract
Many reasons have been documented about the need for more eective teaching of mathematics in universities. These include changes in the level of mathematical skills of new students; changes in society, particularly technological ones, which have led to a strong preference for visual presentation of information; and new students lacking the independent study skills necessary to succeed in higher education. Several authorities have addressed this problem. In this article, we introduce and discuss ideas and strategies for active learning presented by Krantz and Bressoud. We cite thoughts of Zucker and give a summary of strategies formulated by Zweck.

1. Introduction
As an initial point in our considerations, we accept the idea that teaching means helping students to learn. Learning is a complex process, which can be stimulated by external and internal factors. Internal motivation comes from the desire to master or understand certain topics and from the joy a learner experiences when discovering something new. These positive feelings can be strongly motivational in the learning process. Research into the human brain shows that it is impossible to separate emotion from logical thought and learning, and it should be noted that the emotional part of acquiring knowledge seems to be very important. However, this does not mean that learning can only be promoted through strategies focused on the emotions. Other, external strategies have been proved to be eective. These include: posing questions, formulating problems as a story to be continued, communication with learners, creating a conviction that a key to learning is ones own study, mainly taking place outside the classroom. We will start with a short storywe may think of this as a case study. Some years ago, in my undergraduate mathematics class, I taught a student called Ann, in a two-semester course. Ann was an average student, with an average knowledge of secondary school mathematics; she showed no special interest in mathematics, she was more oriented to the nancial management majors she was studying. She was able to pass her mathematics examinations at an average level. Sometimes, she came to me for advice or consultation about how to solve more complicated problems. I tried to show her the whole picture, not only the individual steps in the solution of . . . .
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her problem but also a wider swathe of mathematics. I showed her relevant chapters in the indicated reading and I tried to point out the main areas of applications of this part of mathematics. Later on, when I was no longer teaching any of her classes, I often saw her sitting in the consultation room, helping more junior studentsexplaining mathematics to them. Ann seemed very interested in helping them, and she was very active when her boy friend needed a long, patient, paper-and-pencil explanation of rather elementary mathematical notions. Although this was repetitive work that she had covered many times herself, she did not nd this boring but highly interesting and she developed deeper and deeper insight into mathematics. This was a sideeect brought about as a result of helping her colleagues. She had not undertaken this in order to gain deeper insight into mathematics, but this became very important to her. Now, a few years later, Ann is able to solve theoretical problems in a special branch of mathematics; she is very interested in solving them and she works in a group with other teachers and doctoral students. Ann contributes to scientic seminars in this area and she will apply for doctoral studywith a very high probability of success. A crucial question that we must answer is What happened to so totally change Anns values and appreciation of mathematics?

2. The role of the university teacher

In the Czech Republic, as in many other European countries, there are two ocial duties for university teachers (and they are regularly evaluated in them): (1) to teachthis means to give lectures, to run practical exercise classes, to set and mark examinations; (2) to do scientic research. Many university teachers of mathematics recognize that whilst they are fully involved in mathematics, they are not so deeply devoted to the study of the pedagogy of teaching mathematics; or at least, teaching is often the secondary activity of the two listed above. There is a common belief that as we are mathematicians, with a good knowledge of mathematics, then there is no particular need to worry about our teaching abilities, or even to be specially prepared for our teaching duties. Of course, there are some who are interested in the area, and for them there are stimulating books devoted to the didactics of mathematics. However, there is a very widely held conviction that the best resource for teaching mathematics at university level is our own experience as students and, consequently, we tend to follow the approach of those of our predecessors who we thought were good teachers. This process of relying on our own experience and adopting the methods of our teachers has been challenged. In his book, Krantz (1), gives a concentrated summary of teaching, showing how to manage professionally many aspects of mathematics teachings. The main message of this book is that it is necessary for a teacher to be trained, well-prepared, active, curious and totally involved. Furthermore, he supposes that the learners in our audience are mainly ready and fully prepared to be educated. However, this is often not the case because of the decline, over the last decade, in the level of mathematical skills acquired during pre-university education and the fact that many students have not grasped the principles required for successful study at university level. The Bologna process in many European countries has added to the problem. Learning outcomes have become

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the most important criteria and these often become the goal at the expense of a wider understanding of the subject. Krantz (1) shows that standard teaching methods are nothing more than the minimal requirement for success and very often they are not satisfactory, even when sophisticatedly prepared. The main problem for majority of the teachers is that our audiences are not students who have chosen mathematics as their lifes work. Simply lecturing, even with great explanations, the use of special computer software and other classical or technical methods is not enough. We need some added value to enrich our teaching, independently of the technique used. When remembering our own university professors, there are only a few that we view as extraordinary, as capable of giving us deep insight into the mathematical world. The best ones were always enthusiastic about teaching. In order to be inspiring, a university mathematics teacher has to be curious, totally involved in the subject and in teaching and, above all, he/she has to be an active teacher, recognising from personal experience what this means.

3. What is active learning and active teaching?

Zweck (2) describes three key elements of active learning as follows: . active learning means getting involvedanalysing, synthesizing, evaluating; . active learning involves students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing; . active learning usually results in the generation of something new, for example, a relationship between two ideas. Learning in an active way leads to engagement with a topic, to thinking it through and observing connections between notions related to the topic. This kind of engagement is not promoted by just listening to or being informed about the topic. A further crucial aspect of active learning is that the student is required to gain information for her/himself, to draw conclusions from this information and to transform the information into knowledge. Active learning is based on the learner making small or great discoveries, and these are highly motivational as discovery generates positive emotions. Active teachers try to construct situations where the positive emotion of joy from acquiring knowledge can be experienced. Active learning begins rst with interest and motivation. A mathematics teacher is able to make use of facts from the history of mathematics, starting, say, from ancient Egypt through the idea of the Golden Ratio to fractals or 3D surfaces in construction, as tools for producing motivation. Support from electronic multimedia packages can also help. Experience shows that the teachers personal enthusiasm plays a crucial role. Our starting point is that teaching means helping students to learn. We cannot assume that any of our students will generate their own engagement. The teacher has an important role to encourage students to learn in an active way. This can be achieved by using suitable learning activities. Zweck (2) gives some examples: . Blackboard work by a teaching assistant (TA) with continuous, active input from students. . Think-pair-share: students individually think for a moment about a question posed by a TA, then pair up with a classmate next to them to discuss their thoughts. Finally, a few students are called on to share their ideas with the entire class. . Pair summarizing/checking: students work in pairs. One summarizes a concept, an approach to solving a class of problems or a particular problem. The other listens and checks for errors, correcting them as they arise.

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. Problem posing: individual students construct a problem regarding a particular concept, and then exchange problems with a classmate for solving. . Critiques: students have short pair-wise or entire-group discussions to nd aws in an argument presented by a TA. Bressoud (3) provides further suggestions to make students active participants; as a kind of the most eective learning, he describes a common eort of 34 students trying to cope with an unfamiliar problem, starting it in class and continuing to work on it outside the class; sharing the knowledge in a productive and inspiring way. He also stress the role of posing questions in lectures. In summary, guided, directed dialogue seems to be crucialhistorically, this was the main method of teaching.

4. Effective questioning
As noted in the previous section, posing questions can play a key role in promoting students to engage with the topic under consideration in an active way. However, thought needs to be given to what questions to use and how to encourage students to respond. Zweck (4) recommends a number of strategies for asking questions: . Ask many questions at low cognitive levels to help students shore up basic skills from previous courses or earlier in the current course. . Ask some questions at high cognitive levels. . Wait 35 s after asking a question. . Encourage students to respond. . Probe students responses for clarication and to stimulate thinking. . Acknowledge correct responses: Praise should be used genuinely, sparingly, and it should be specic. . Design questions so that about 70% are answered correctly. . Balance responses from volunteering and non-volunteering students. The above strategies relate to asking questions in a face-to-face situation. However, there are other ways that questioning can take place. Almost all courses in the Faculty of Informatics and Management at the University of Hradec Kralove have e-learning support facilities in the universitys WebCT environment. Tools in this environment enable collaboration with fellow students organized in discussion groups. Last semester, a very intensive discussion group was generatedstudents even invented their own mathematical notation, and helped each other to solve problems (they commented that the best way to learn a subject is to teach it to others). Communication with TAs through this medium was also very rich and fruitful. This indirect electronic tool enabled the breaking down of some barriers between students and lecturers/instructors. In this way, the students posed many questions, whereas previously they had hardly posed any. After this, we made use of open discussion directly on those topics, and it helped us to recognize very substantial problems that had not been identied before. The ability to be an active learner contains a very signicant social aspectit promotes interaction with other learners. This can be transferred to an active approach to life in general, and particularly to life-long learning. This is very important in connection with the phenomenon of the ageing European population.

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5. Preparing for active learning

At the start of their courses, the majority of our students show very poor secondary school mathematical skills. Furthermore, they have little experience of active learning. It is necessary to spend some time and resources to prepare students for their experience in higher education. Zucker (5) recommends that students must be told immediately that they are about to face a big jump in level from high school, and that the basic task for freshmen is to reorder their thinking. University students are very often given Survival Guides or Academic Orientation booklets which outline a list of the basic study demands required for succesful transition from secondary level to university level. The contents of these booklets depend on the discipline to be studied; however, it is worth using these booklets to inform the students about how to adopt an active learning approach. This message should be reinforced by teachers in classes as well (2). At University of Hradec Kralove, the Faculty of Informatics and Management organizes special introductory lectures about study methods, and psychologists are involved as authors or consultants in these lectures. Zuckers (5) list of essential information for freshman includes the following: . . . . The pace of studying at university is two to three times faster than at high school. The responsibility for learning lies with the studentthe teachers role is one of a facilitator. Sta will direct students to appropriate resources, but it is up to the students to use them. Students must study for a considerable amount of time outside classes.

The last point can be reinforced by using the European tertiary education framework, based on the ECTS credit system where credits are directly linked to student workload (in terms of hours not classes). In order to promote active learning it is not sucient just to prepare students. Teachers must approach their role in an appropriate waythey must plan activities that engage students rather than ones that leave them as passive recipients. Zweck (4) gives important guidance: . . . . . . . . . . Design your sessions so that students come fully prepared to participate. Repeatedly explain the value of active learning. Explain the specic goals of each active learning exercise. Give clear and concise instructions. Match the type of activity to the content being covered. If a strategy is not working, x it and/or change it. It is useful when preparing activities for active learning to use the following check list: How is the planned activity a good match to the content? How does the planned activity generate meaning for students? What instructions will you give students? How will you measure success?

6. Student attitudes and reactions

At our faculty, the creation of a work environment based on active learning has been a rather long process. For many students, it has not been achieved within an academic year. The transition from secondary level studying to university level studying remains a major obstacle. Where students have recognized the need for special help, this has usually been provided through private consultations or special (group or individual) mathematics courses. The regulations allow

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students to take a course at most twice, and, in general, students making a second attempt are much more engaged than during their rst attempt, and therefore they are also more successful. Education at the faculty is open to students from secondary schools of all types, and mathematics for our students serves only as a supporting subject in their study programmes (such as Applied Informatics, Economics and Management or System Engineering and Informatics) and this makes the task of engaging students with mathematics harder. As they become more experienced with active learning, the students accept the need for more self study, with support from teachers. Teachers have generally placed an emphasis on competences as learning outcomes and this has enabled students to understand more clearly what is required of them. To assist them teachers, have supplied structured exercises which are nested by themes, with increasing levels of diculty. Outside classes, discussions among students and between students and TAs, have developed both face-to-face and using electronic discussion forums. We have observed the growing ability of students to nd the inner structure of exercise sets; they have understood that nding the core ideas will help them to solve problems in a more eective way. Their attempts have become more focused, applying concepts in an appropriate way, rather than their previous chaotic approaches. Instead of preferring quantitative work (as was previously the case), they have become more and more oriented on the theory we now hear in our class discussions that theory is the key. This indicates to the teachers that a crucial step in the students learning strategy has been discovered. From observations of discussions outside of classes, we have noticed that the very frequently asked questions of the type how do you compute the answer or where is the error in my solution are slowly changing to questions such as why it is so, what is the reason for this procedure, where can we nd similar or more general cases or what are the typical problems of that theory, show me the overview. The greater communication between teachers and students means that the attitudes of individual students are known, and those who are engaging in active learning can be used as examples of good practice for others. To further promote active learning, in the second semester, the most engaged students can take an optional Particular Project as a part of the curriculum. This is designed for them individually by a teacher and provides them with the opportunity to carry out supplementary work on problems connected with their major. The themes of these projects are usually connected to the application of mathematical methods to a real problem in their major and will require them to work from specic prescribed literature. The Faculty of Informatics and Management of the University of Hradec Kralove is a small, but dynamic faculty searching for its specic position in the higher education market. The faculty educational system is highly oriented towards student motivation. As a consequence, eorts to improve the teaching techniques in mathematics are reinforced by the teaching methods applied by colleagues of other departments (such as Departments of Economy, of Management, of Applied Languages, etc.). Therefore, general methods for generating, sharing, processing and managing information required for active learning are widespread throughout the faculty. It serves as a major support for mathematics teachers introducing active learning approaches that the common atmosphere generated in the faculty enables tension-free contacts between learners and teachers.

7. Conclusions
Zucker (5) states that At university level, students must learn on their own, outside the class, and this is the main feature that distinguishes college from the high school. We would add to this

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that at university, students should engage in active learning and it is the role of teachers to involve students in learning activities. We consider that there are two key strategies which are necessary to implement active teaching: (1) A change from conventional lecturing to an active way of delivering knowledge. (2) Widespread use of question-posing, in dierent and specic forms, depending on the subject and the audience. The use of questioning in teaching belongs to the most powerful instructional strategies leading to active learning (6).

References
1. Krantz, S. G. (1999) How to Teach Mathematics. Providence, Rhode Island: American Mathematical Society. 2. Zweck, J. (2006) Strategies to promote active learning in math/stat discussion sessions. Accessed via http:// www.math.umbc.edu/zweck/TATrain/ActiveLearningStrategies.pdf (7 July 2008). 3. Bressoud, D. (1999) Personal thoughts on mature teaching. In Krantz, S. G. (ed.) How to Teach Mathematics. Providence, Rhode Island: American Mathematical Society, pp. 173181. 4. Zweck, J. (2006) Study habits and the transition from high school to UMBC. Accessed via http:// www.math.umbc.edu/zweck/TATrain/StudyHabits.html (7 July 2008). 5. Zucker, S. (1996) Teaching at the university level. Notices of the AMS, 43, 863865. 6. Eison, J. (2000) Learning to use questions and using questions to learn: two essential skills for promoting active learning. Accessed via http://www.idea.ksu.edu/workshops/Clarion/workshops.html (14 February 2008).

APPENDIX
In a personal conversation with Ann, the student from the introductory case study, she conrmed that in response to the necessity to solve problems and cope with applied tasks, she had immersed herself in a branch of mathematics, and due to her own eort, supported by teaching assistants, she had become more and more engaged, and then positively motivated by her success.
Address for correspondence: Tatiana Gavalcova, Department of Informatics and Quantitative Methods, Faculty of Informatics and Management, University of Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic. E-mail: [email protected]