Active Learning
Have you heard of the phrase active learning? If you have not, I bet you could still tell the difference of what active learning is versus traditional learning from your own personal experience. In traditional learning methods, students are passive recipients of knowledge. The standard teacher lecturing to a classroom of kids taking notes is the prime example of traditional learning. Active learning is any approach to teaching in which all students are asked to engage in the learning process. Taking the lesson a step further by helping students to absorb the knowledge more by engaging them in the lesson. Simply put, make it fun!
When I reflect on moments in my life where I participated in active learning, I thought of various S.T.E.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) activities. Typically, science classes are the easiest to provide active learning because why lecture about a complex theorem when you can show it through science experiments? Kids always have a good time and makes the lesson memorable.
Personally, I absorb more knowledge with visuals and real-life examples of a concept. The graphic below is a great visual on how people remember best with examples of active learning.
According to the graphic above, people generally remember 90% of what they do and an example of that can be to design a presentation. This week I was able to explore a previous project of the American Revolution that was done by Ms. Malhiot's classroom in 2015.
Not only was this project a great active learning experience for the students, but I would also like to think about it from the perspective of an observer and reflect what marks they would hit on active learning as well.
"People generally remember 10% of what they read." This display provides plenty of information to read on posters.
"People generally remember 50% of what they see and hear." The students executed this by providing historical visuals with memorable humorous additions of their faces and provided QR codes to scan to listen to information about what they learned from what is being displayed in the poster.
Not only does this project engage the students but also the audience it is on display for!
How Do I Use Active Learning?
Though I am not an educator, I still believe there are ways I can incorporate active learning. As mentioned prior, I feel like STEM based activities are the easiest. Our public library loves offering a variety of these activities to kids, and the kids love them! They are learning something, but it feels like play. I am usually in charge of much younger ages, which can be challenging to keep engaged. I have mentioned before that I use a software program called Novel Effect which helps elevate your story times with background noises and music. Even adding silly sounds to a story does wonders to keep kids' attention and change "I hate reading" attitudes to "I love the Library!"
This was one of my favorite activities because the students weren't told to insert themselves into the scene- that happened organically which is what made it so fun! Thank you for pointing out that active learning is not just for education!
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