Teaching Strategies to promote Active Learning:
Effective Teaching Methods based on Active Learning
Theories.
How to use psychological principles of active learning (in
constructivism,
active reception learning,...) for effective teaching of concepts and skills.
This page describes modern psychological
theories about "active learning" and how these ideas can be used
in education, to develop teaching methods with "active instruction" that will
help students learn more effectively and enjoyably.
Active Learning — Overviews
• An excellent introduction to ideas about active learning is
Joyce Alexander's
overview-summaries of
learning
theories, behaviorism, cognitive information processing, meaningful reception
learning, cognitive development, and constructivism. She
also has a links-page with resources for general Learning-and-Teaching plus
summaries for
9
major learning theories.
• Another good course about
learning
theories in education is by Mimi Recker,
with summaries for
Behaviorism,
Schema (Mental Models), Gagne (Instructional Design), Cognitive Development,
and Constructivism, plus student papers, lecture-PPTs, and a variety of
notes (explore the links) about
Ausubel, Bandura, Gagne, Piaget, Skinner,
and Vygotsky.
•
ERIC Digests provide
summary-overviews of
Constructivist
Views of
Learning in Science & Math and
Schema
Activation, Construction, and Application and (later in this page) more.
• A more general overview is
Learning,
Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment, and School Organization from Funderstanding
(also check their sitemap).
• And you can see an
outline
of ideas about learning in the
Table of Contents for Psychology of Learning for
Instruction by M.P. Driscoll.
Learning Theories
• Overview-summaries for many theories of learning are
in the websites of Alexander and Recker above, and you'll find a wider variety
in the
"Theory into Practice" website of Greg Kearsley, with
53
summaries of Learning Theories and
more.
• And if you want to explore on your own,
23
links-pages for learning theories.
Meaningful Reception Learning — David Ausubel
• A theory of
Meaningful Reception Learning, developed by David
Ausubel, is a personal favorite of the editor (Craig Rusbult) and you can see
why in summaries from
Mimi
Recker &
Greg
Kearsley &
Joyce
Alexander and the website of
David
Ausubel.
• This page
concludes with the editor's
ideas about
discovery learning (first-hand and second-hand)
and
why
cognitively active reception learning can
be meaningful and effective, enjoyable and time-efficient.
Guided Inquiry
• four
levels & more will be here eventually but not now (*)
Learning
Theories and Teaching Strategies:
Interactions between Learning & Teaching, and Applications
for Instruction
• an introduction to the
constructivist
learning theories of Piaget, Vygotsky, and Ausubel;
• ERIC Digests describe
A
New Framework
(by David Merrill) for Teaching and
Situated
Learning and
Conceptual
Change in Science.
• CCCU offers resources for
Active
Learning and
(when
you
follow
the
top-of-page
links
backward from Pedagogy to Faculty Development and Resource Center) much more.
•
Educational Leadership, in
November
1999, looked at
The
Constructivist Classroom and
you can read a foreword about
The
C Word and
15
abstracts (from "The
Many
Faces
of
Constructivism" to "...a
Partial
Solution") and two articles:
The
Courage to be Constructivist and
Caution:
Constructivism
Ahead.
• a range of proposals for "constructivist education" and
the
practical
difficulties of radical constructivism that concludes with "Constructivism
and... a New Look at Ausubel"; by ignoring the distinction
between "what we can know" and "what actually exists," super-radical
constructivism (which is proposed by some constructivist educators but not
by most) can get carried away into the silliness of
extreme
postmodern relativism;
• chapter summary with an overview of models (cognitive, conceptual,
social contextual) for
meaningful
learning in education by Mark & Cindy Grabe, plus informal
thoughts about
constructivism by
Mark Grabe;
• Richard Mayer asks,
Should
There Be a Three-Strikes Rule Against Pure Discovery Learning? and
concludes
that
"overall,
the constructivist view of learning may be best supported by methods of instruction
that involve cognitive activity rather than behavioral activity, instructional
guidance rather than pure discovery, and curricular focus rather than unstructured
exploration." (
abstract)
• Analysis of
Why
Minimal Guidance during Instruction Does Not Work by Paul Kirschner
(Netherlands), John Sweller (U.K.), Richard Clark (U.S.), in Educational Psychologist,
2006, explains why
"these approaches ignore both
the structures that constitute human cognitive architecture and evidence from
empirical studies
over the past half century that consistently indicate that minimally-guided
instruction is less effective and less efficient than instructional approaches
that place a strong emphasis on guidance of the student learning process."
• ERIC Digests summarize ideas about learning by
discussions (guided,
inquiry, reflective, exploratory) and teaching science through
inquiry &
design and
various procedures (inquiry, STS, conceptual change, interdisciplinary themes,
coordinated
sequences, and student collaboration) for
improving
the science curriculum; and as a humble reminder of what we don't
yet know, open questions (where research is needed) about
Science
Education &
Math
Education.
* Later,
but probably not until October 2009, there will more resources, especially
in this section (including
defenses of instruction based on "radical constructivism" to
provide some balance for the claims above) but also in other parts of
the page.
