Taking Action in the Classroom

We have known for years that when students take an active role in their learning they learn better. This study reinforces that fact.

Researchers had one group of participants, the active group, memorize a set of images by shading the images allowing the movement of a mouse to reveal them. The other set of participants, the passive group, watched a video of the active groups screen. The active group were able to recall more of the images than the passive.

To encourage active learning you need students to deal with the information. They need to do more than just copy definitions or listen to a lecture. They need to manipulate the information to learn it.

Application
One of the ways you can make students deal with information is to ask them to write their own questions about the material. Another method is to use the jigsaw method which makes students experts in specific parts of the material.