Active learning and student attention

College students are habituated to a classroom norm sociologists call civil attention: creating the appearance of paying attention (sitting still, looking awake, scribbling or typing) while potentially not paying attention at all. Active learning disrupts this all-too-familiar pattern by inviting students to engage with course material in real-time. Like any disruption, the shift from passive to active engagement can engender some confusion, or even resistance, so it is important to establish active classroom norms early on in the academic term, and explain to students that your course design draws on established research to help them achieve deeper, more meaningful, and more longer-lasting learning. 

To build a culture of active learning in your course, consider adopting an Activity Before Content (ABC) approach, where students engage with problems or hands-on experiences before being introduced to new course content. Capturing student attention with a question to answer, problem to solve, puzzle to tease out, or challenge to tackle is a great way to open a class session and to communicate the expectation of active engagement (as opposed to civil attention) in the course. In an experimental study conducted by Bertrand Schneider et al. at Stanford University, students who spent time playing with a simulation of the brain’s vision systems and then read about the same systems in a textbook performed 25% better on tests than students who read the textbook first and then played with the simulation. Activity Before Content strategies can be deployed at any point in a class session to prepare students for receiving new content, to test prior knowledge/understanding, to generate curiosity, to capture and/or refresh attention, and to reinforce active learning as a classroom norm.  

Check out these related teaching tips on sparking curiosity and sustaining attention and activity before content (ABC) strategies [Requires Sharepoint Login]

Leveraging cognitive science for active learning

Recent research on human cognition offers a number of insights into the most effective (and ineffective) ways to learn. Our students can benefit from those insights, especially if we build evidence-based learning practices into the structure of our courses. Designing active learning strategies aligned with the science of human learning can help students overcome erroneous ideas about how learning works (e.g. re-reading class notes as a way to prepare for an exam) and introduce them to more effective learning strategies (e.g. spaced retrieval practice) that they can use to deepen learning in your course, and all other academic courses going forward.

Effective evidence-based learning strategies include:

• Activating prior knowledge (asking students to demonstrate what they already know)
• Retrieval practice (asking students to retrieve newly learned content)
• Spaced practice (spreading learning over time)
• Interleaving (remixing new and old content)
• Feedback loops (offering timely feedback on practice attempts, followed by more practice informed by the feedback) 

A carefully designed active-learning lesson plan might include multiple strategies drawn from this list: an opening puzzle designed to test student understanding of a concept (activating prior knowledge); a flash-quiz where students recall material from previous course modules (spaced practice); a concept-mapping exercise where students connect new content to previously learned material (interleaving); a multiple-choice poll where students post answers to practice problems and have the opportunity to correct responses in real time (feedback loop); a wrap-up one-minute paper where students recall key concepts from the lecture they have just attended without looking at their notes (retrieval); and so on.

Reflection as active learning

While the term “active learning” is typically associated with high-demand cognitive activities like problem solving, content retrieval, or application, active engagement with course material can also take the form of processing breaks or reflection. Given that our brains fatigue quickly, student attention needs refreshing throughout the course of any class. A processing break as short as two minutes, during which students turn to a peer to share whatever they wish about the course material, or simply write down questions/points of confusion can help students learn more effectively. Such strategic breaks, or pause procedures, can help students absorb and assimilate course material without much effort on the part of the instructor–they simply require becoming more intentional in the way we design opportunities for students to process. Building in reflection time (from brief micro-reflections, to structured reflection intervals, to full-scale reflection assignments) can help students engage more meaningfully with course content and integrate new learning into existing knowledge structures. 

In-class and out-of class reflection prompt might include:

• Muddiest points: what is still unclear?
• Centers of gravity: what seems to be the most important point?
• Value affirmations: how does this intersect with your values/your life outside of class?
• Transfer practice: how does this connect to things you’re learning in other courses?
• Metacognition: how did this learning task go? Did your usual learning strategies work for you? How might you refine your process? How are you evolving as a learner?
• Affect: how do you feel about this?

In addition to having direct benefits for learning, reflection can help counter educational alienation experienced by many students. Finally, when shared, reflections can equip instructors with invaluable information about the knowledge-construction processes and learning experiences taking place in our courses. 

Check out this related teaching tip on the power of pausing and reflection [requires Sharepoint Login]

Active learning and equity

While active learning benefits students in general, the benefits are even more pronounced for students from historically underrepresented/underserved backgrounds. Multiple studies have shown that a well-designed active learning environment has the potential for narrowing educational achievement gaps and encouraging persistence in students who might otherwise be quitting our fields. These results should not be surprising: setting an expectation of active engagement for all students helps combat academic alienation while providing everyone with the practice opportunities necessary for meaningful learning. As a result, all students–not just those already equipped with academic metacognitive skills–reap the proven benefits of hands-on practice, knowledge retrieval, feedback loops, reflection, and collaboration. By modeling effective learning strategies in our courses, and by making our approach transparent, we help students understand how human learning works, and provide them with the tools required to succeed in our course and beyond. In this way, we can not only promote learning in our own courses, but also promote what Saundra McGuire calls metacognitive equity–equitable access to effective learning strategies for all students.

Next: Collaborative Learning