Engaging & Supporting Diverse Learners:Making Learning Active

Dr. Bruce TaylorDirector, The Center for Adolescent Literacies

September 26, 2011

Our Agenda for Tonight

• Quick question• Active vs. Passive Learning• Teaching & learning tools that make learning

active• Questions

Quick Question

• When teaching in your classroom, do you find yourself wishing you could wake up the students and get them more excited in learning?

• Let’s talk about this for a couple minutes.• What can we do about this?

Active vs. Passive Learning

• "Learning by Doing" or "Active Learning" means engaging all of our senses and attention into discovering something new.

• When children listen to teachers lecturing or when they watch TV, we call this "passive learning."

Active vs. Passive Learning

Passive Learning• "traditional class": lecturing

instructor verbalizing information to passive note-taking students

• instructor is "verbal" textbook• student is an "empty" vessel to

be filled with knowledge• on exams, students regurgitate

what the instructor tells them

Active Learning• the instructor models activities

that students implement in class

• visual aids, demonstrations, etc., integrated into class presentations

• Students talk, discuss, present, enact, create

Putting These Into Practice

Let’s try some of these:• ThinkPairShare with word problems (math)• Fishbowl & Ticket to Talk with Civil Rights

(social studies)• 3-2-1 and Vocabulary Cards with global

warming (science)

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45

A

B

C

D

E

Looking at the figure above, if triangle ABC is an equilateral triangle and line BC is parallel to line DE, what is the measure of angle 5? A) 60 degreesB) 90 degreesC) 120 degreesD) 180 degreesE) Not enough information is given to answer this question

Use ThinkPairShare to solve this problem.

Questions???