What is Active Learning?

The active learning model implies a change in focus. The student ceases to be passive and becomes the protagonist of his or her learning.

The teaching concern about creating structures and dynamics for student involvement in their education is not a new problem. A learning process based on the appropriation of knowledge and not just its reproduction is indisputably more effective. This is the basic idea underlying active learning.

This didactic strategy is distinguished by focusing on the student’s learning and encouraging active and conscious participation in the educational process. Compression of the covered material is crucial for the execution of active learning, designed to manage the didactic experience as a day that begins with the student and not just as a response to what the teacher proposes.

To promote the conditions of active learning, one must construct collaborative spaces. In this way, students can contribute, dialogue, and generate knowledge within the class. This is called learning by doing; it is the principal tool for meeting active learning goals.

Active learning goals

Active learning aims to provide students with the environment, activities, and accompaniment to develop search skills for analyses and syntheses of information, solve problems, and be proficient in dialogue and expression. To successfully apply it, students must reflect and practice teacher-transmitted knowledge and skills to cement long-term memories and a deeper understanding, allowing them not only to store information in their memory but adopt the knowledge and skills as their own.

This will also enable them to create connections in the learned material and think creatively. In this scenario, students stop being passive spectators waiting to do what the teacher commands. With this change of rhythm, the teacher must also adapt.

The role of the teacher

Within the framework of active learning, the teacher’s first task is to procure a teaching environment that feels safe to the students and arouses their interest, thus, promoting their participation. The teacher here is a guide, a motivator, and their most important job is to encourage students to learn by doing for the pleasure of doing things that lead them to learn.

How is it applied?

The San Antonio Educational Center, located in Chile’s Maule region, represents a practical example of how to venture into an active learning methodology. They conducted an internal study to identify which pedagogical practices the students preferred. Ninety-five percent of the students declared their predilection to learn in groups. As a result, teachers completely changed their pedagogical model to a collaborative one that also encouraged students’ creativity.

“It makes them much more empathetic, much more receptive, they care more about their teammates,” states Pamela Rojas, a primary education teacher at the San Antonio Educational Center. She argues that this also generates stronger student ties and a more enthusiastic commitment to the school.

Have you applied active learning at school? How has your experience been with this methodology? Tell us in the comments.

Translation by Daniel Wetta.

Sofía García-Bullé

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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0