Active teaching methods

This page focuses on the element ‘active teaching methods’. It provides a description of the element, highlights its relevance, and provides examples of active teaching methods in the curriculum.

Description

Active teaching methods – this may include problem solving; discussions/debate; team activities; real-world activities (fulfilling a project brief, consultancy); opportunities for students to create; competitions; the pitching of ideas etc. In short, active teaching methods are any choice of pedagogies that increase active, rather than passive, learning in students.

Relevance for student development, employability and careers

Alongside supporting students’ learning and development, active teaching methods can strengthen a range of non-technical skills valuable to students’ personal and professional development such as communication, presentation skills, teamwork, and creativity. Active teaching methods often overlap with the ‘real-world/applied learning’ element as they frequently involve students engaging with, and applying, their learning or disciplinary methods.

Quick comment about this element: Research suggests that teaching methods that increase active learning in students also increase performance and student retention. However, it is important to note that 'classic' or didactic lectures can also be effective and that active teaching methods can be done poorly. Moreover, the research is currently inconclusive about whether it is beneficial to spend all teaching time in, for instance, ‘flipped classrooms’. It is therefore important to incorporate this element authentically and enrich your teaching with a range of diverse teaching methods. However, in the current higher education climate the balance often leans heavily towards 'classic' lectures, providing significant scope to incorporate some of the suggestions below.

Tips and things to consider

Below you will find some key tips and guidance to consider when incorporating active teaching methods.

Active teaching methods can happen in many different ways, but the main goal is to ensure students get time to think and actively work with the material in contrast to passively listening to a lecture. You can choose to redesign your existing courses with initiatives such as group work, flipped classrooms, experiential learning, student projects, and student co-creation or you can apply some of the principles below to make your students’ learning more active.

Practical tips

Look at the distribution of learning hours in your course	A good place to start is reviewing the proportion of time your students are in 'classic lectures' vs tutorials and self-study and active teaching methods. Would changing that potentially benefit students? If you change the distribution, be clear to your students about the reason and the benefits.
Allow time where you are not talking	This might seem like a terrifying idea in a lecture, but it is important to remember that all the time that a teacher is talking and students are listening, students have minimal room to think. Therefore it can be valuable to leave time and provide mechanisms to encourage our students to think and talk in order to really engage with the material.
Ask questions and make them engaging	One way to give students a chance to engage with the material is to ask questions. By making your questions go beyond knowledge recollection, you increase the likelihood that students engage with material on a deeper level, looking for connections and patterns. Allowing students to discuss questions and answers with peers can add further value.
Peer discussions	When appropriate, use peer discussions to encourage student engagement with the material. Discussions with peers can have two separate benefits: it helps support an active learning environment, and it can help build a sense of community in the course.
Match your teaching methods and assessments to learning outcomes that focus on attributes	Explicitly linking assessments and course activities with things the student should be able to do after the course will help make the activity be, and be seen as, more authentic. For example, if you want students from your programme to be strong in group work, solving problems, discussions, or presentations, make sure there are appropriate opportunities in the curriculum for them to achieve this.
Students creating and exploring their own questions	During lectures you can ask students to consider their own questions relating to the learning objectives. It's valuable to protect time for students to identify these questions and potentially discuss answers or approaches to finding answers with their peers, and then finally hand these questions to you. This not only actively engages students in the learning process but can indicate where additional input from you is most helpful.
Consider learning technologies that allow immediate student answers or feedback	Technologies like Tophat allow you to ask student questions and immediately receive their answers anonymously. This allows you to both ask questions and have everyone in your course answer, as well as giving opportunity for you to see any common misunderstandings. Another use can be to have students submit questions thus allowing you to target your teaching or answer common questions. Effective use of such technologies can support students being active in your courses, even at large scale.

Examples of practice in the University of Edinburgh

There is diverse practice across the University that can be used to stimulate thinking about what is possible in your setting.

Below is a link to a range of relevant practice from the Teaching Matters blog. The examples come from multiple parts of the student experience and relate either partially or substantially to this element. New articles are automatically added so check back in the future to discover some of the latest practice.

Teaching Matters: relevant articles

Further reading and external perspectives

The references below provide some background on this element as well as some of the external drivers and motivations for including it.

Overview

These references and research pull on both theoretical and empirical arguments for incorporating more active learning into the curriculum. The empirical data show positive effects of activities such as flipped classrooms and student participation. The references also include practical advice and ideas on how to incorporate such practices.

Reference	Description
Freeman, S., Eddy, S.L., McDonough, M., Smith, M.K., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., & Wenderoth, M.P. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. PNAS, 111(23), 8410-8415.	Meta-analysis of 225 studies finds that STEM students in an active learning environment perform better in examinations and that failure and drop-out rates of courses significantly decrease.
Haak et al, (2011). Increased Structure and Active Learning Reduce the Achievement Gap in Introductory Biology. Science, 332: 1213-1216.	In this study looking at STEM courses, researchers found that while generally all students benefitted from structure and active-learning exercises, students who were capable but poorly-prepared particularly showed increased performance and retention.
Eddy, S. L. and K. A. Hogan (2014). Getting under the hood: how and for whom does increasing course structure work? CBE Life Sci Educ 13(3): 453-468.	The authors found that 'moderate structure' interventions and active learning activities increased student performance, but most clearly in black and first generation students. They hypothesise that the increased performance is partly due to increased use of distributed learning among students, facilitated by the structure and activities.
McQueen, H.A. & McMillan, C. (2018). Quectures: Personalised constructive learning in lectures. Active Learning in Higher Education.	The paper describes the concept of a 'Quecture' where students pose their own questions and discuss them, creating a partially-flipped classroom. Students seem both to favour and perform better under this teaching method compared to traditional lectures.
Information Services, University of Edinburgh; Information about Tophat	University-supported polling system that can easily be incorporated to increase students’ participation in courses.
Lubicz-Nawrocka, T. (2019). An introduction to students and staff-co-creation. Teaching Matters Blog.	This blog post introduces the concept of student and staff co-creation, which is one way to engage students in active learning.
Healey, M. and Healy, R. (2020), Embedding Active Learning Into Your Teaching Practice. Heriot-Watt University, Watt Works Quick Guides. Document Embedding Active Learning into Your Teaching Practice - HWU Watt Works Guide (1.3 MB / PDF)	This guide from Heriot Watt University provides a series of approaches to embedding active teaching, as well as background context and reason for implementing active learning in your teaching.
Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, University of Michigan (n.d.). How can you incorporate active learning into your classroom? Resource	A valuable resource with practical activities that can be implemented directly as they are or adapted to your context.
Beames, S. (2018). Experiential education: Defining features for curriculum and pedagogy. Teaching Matters Blog.	Experiential education is one of the most classic ways of allowing students to be active in their learning – this blog post provides a valuable introduction to the concept.
Wood, A.K, Galloway, R.K., Donnelly, R., & Hardy, J. (2016). Characterizing interactive engagement activities in a flipped introductory physics class. Physical Review Physics Education Research, 12(1), 1-15.	This paper discusses how active learning or ‘interactive engagement’ is beneficial in introductory physics classes, but also breaks down different approaches, such as peer instruction and flipped classrooms.
Clements, M.D. and Cord, B.A. (2013): Assessment guiding learning: developing graduate qualities in an experiential learning programme. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 38 (1) 114–24.	This paper explores different assessment strategies that support student development and make the most of experiential learning activities.

This article was published on 2024-05-14