Engaging Students in active Learning through Carefully Designed Student Activities

1. Jingzi Huang, Ph.D School of Teacher Education, CEBS UNC 2013 Fall GTA Conference Presentation Engaging Students in active Learning through Carefully Designed Student Activities

2. Expected Outcomes • Articulate your perception of teaching as a way to facilitate learning; • Identify some characteristics of teaching practice that lead to active learning; • List and describe at least four activities you could design for the course you will be teaching; • Come up with one question regarding an area of teaching you want to explore further

3. What is learning? • How do you know learning is occurring? • If your students have not learned, have you taught? • How does learning take place?

4. Teaching that is Engaging • Think-pair-share: • Describe one occasion in you past student experience when you felt that the teacher was “teaching” hard, but you did not gain anything. • Describe one occasion in you past student experience when you felt that you did learn something from the lesson taught by your teacher.

5. Describe what you would like your students to gain out of each lesson you will teach? • Knowledge; • Performance; • Cognitive development: thinking skills; • Attitudes/dispositions towards learning and the targeted field of studies

6. Some characteristics of teaching practice that lead to active learning

7. Some characteristics of teaching practice that lead to active learning I. COURSE ORGANIZATION AND PLANNING • Objectives that are clear to both you and your students; • Design and implementation of instructional activities aligned with the objectives II. COMMUNICATION • Clarity; • Style, manner; • Enthusiasm for subject • Encouragement of critical thinking by students; • Effective use of appropriate teaching techniques and teaching aids. III. FACULTY-STUDENT INTERACTION • Nature of student participation; • Extent of student interest and participation; • Sensitivity to student reactions.

8. Engaging Activities: Organization and Planning Objectives indicating observable outcomes: • SWAT list five… • SWAT conduct the experiment… • SWAT explain how… • SWAT justify… based on analyzing evidence … Activities targeting the outcomes: • In small groups, students search for evidence … • Present their conclusion with the support of…

9. Engaging Activities: Communication • Clarity – use of multiple ways of communication: verbal, non-verbal, visual, board, pictures, etc. • Style, manner: facilitator, encouraging, firm; • Enthusiasm for subject: contagious sentiment; • Encouragement of critical thinking by students: questions at different cognitive levels: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation. • Effective use of appropriate teaching techniques and teaching aids: varies by content and topics

10. Engaging Activities: Faculty-Student Interaction • Nature of student participation - motivated learners • Carefully thought out questions that help students see the relevance; • Leave room for students to explore and earn a sense of ownership; • Extent of student interest and participation – everyone should be on task most of the time: • Pair/group work • Active listening: tangible tasks for listening • Peer evaluation • Sensitivity to student reactions – students’ responses are valued: • Utilize wait time; • Acknowledge effort; • Encourage elaborated explanation; • Recognize new/different perspective; • Promote peer response.

11. Conclusion • What strategies do you think you can try in your teaching? • Please identify an area you would like to explore more.