What is it?
Active learning is an approach where learners are actively involved or engaged in the learning process. Active involvement is characterised by learner choice or autonomy regarding the task itself, as well as how and when learners respond. Active learning leverages learners’ own interests to engage them in the learning process. It uses hands-on, authentic, real-world related activities with teachers occupying the role of facilitator rather than didactic instructor (Martlew, Stephen & Ellis, 2011).
Smith (2015) describes the teacher’s role in active learning as ‘ask[ing] questions, to focus on teachable moments and encourage sharing of knowledge with other children, to record anecdotal observations and to provide materials and resources to enhance learning experiences’ (p. 141).
The Scottish Government’s move towards a play-based learning pedagogy in the early years of schooling is called ‘active learning’ (Martlew, Stephen & Ellis, 2011).
How active learning carries the five characteristics
- Meaningful learning opportunities are created when learners’ experiences from home and education settings are integrated. When concepts are reinforced across different learning contexts and activities, relevance and meaning become attached to the concept leading to deeper, more durable learning (Marbina, Church & Tayler, 2011; Sinnema, Sewell & Milligan, 2011). Some examples of the integration of activities and contexts include learning about seed life cycles while planting seedlings in a school garden program, and learning through open, learner-led classroom discussions.
- Social interaction transpires as active learning and commonly uses group work and peer learning. Further, active learning makes use of learners’ own experiences, knowledge and lives and therefore generates positive teacher-learner interactions; an essential ingredient for beneficial social interaction (Haßler, Hennessey, Cross, Chileshe & Machiko, 2015).
- Learners are actively engaged as they have had some degree of freedom and choice in the learning activity, which has motivated them to participate (Martlew, Stephen & Ellis, 2011).
- Learners iterate by investigating and exploring new concepts and ideas in active learning environments.
- Active learning environments were often described in the literature as enjoyable, fun, and positive (Burris, 2011; Cefai et al., 2014) generating empathic teacher-learner and peer-learner relationships (Castano, 2008; Sinnema, Sewell & Milligan, 2011).
Evidence of impact
Researchers have found active learning to positively influence learning outcomes in the following ways:
Cognitive and socio-emotional. Castano (2008) examined the use of constructivist active learning strategies in her science teaching research in Colombia. She found that when learners have the opportunity to discuss socio-scientific dilemmas related to the science concepts they had learned, they described concepts more accurately, made better connections between the concepts, their lives, and nature, and expressed concern for related global issues.
Achievement and growth mindsets. In a project introducing interactive pedagogy in Zambia, Haßler et al. (2015) found that when teachers tried open-ended classroom questioning, peer learning, and hands-on activities, they saw learners demonstrate higher levels of achievement. Teachers then revised previously held views about learners’ capability. Active learning is demonstrative and multidimensional and offers opportunities for learners to display abilities that might not be revealed in traditional classroom settings.
Social and emotional skills. A simple active learning strategy, Circle Time (Cefai et al., 2014), was examined in Italy, where learners and teachers sit in a circle and use an object to determine speaking order, to solve problems, discuss events, play a game, talk about feelings and tell stories. This strategy was found to foster improvements in prosocial behaviours such as listening, collaboration, and peer relationships, and reduce behavioural problems among Grade 1–5 learners.
Enabling factors
Successful implementation of active learning approaches depended on a number of factors including:
- Regular and ongoing reflective dialogue between teachers in professional learning groups. This supports long-term improvements in classroom practices. Haßler et al. (2015) found that one-off programs are not effective as efforts must be sustained over time in order to create lasting change.
- Use of evidence was valuable in linking changed classroom practices to improved learning outcomes for learners. Sinnema, Sewell and Milligan (2011) described how teachers and researchers worked collaboratively to design, implement, and reflect on pedagogical improvements based on evidence.
- Time, space, and planning. Even simple activities like Circle Time (Cefai et al., 2014) require time in the curriculum, physical space in which to conduct the activity, and planning to ensure they are implemented in a way that generates positive outcomes.
- Whole school level support — for example, peer support and mentoring, creating communities of practice, leadership support, and resources — is integral for consistent uptake of new pedagogical approaches like active learning (Cefai et al., 2014; Davison, Galbraith, & McQueen, 2008).