Study: Not all active learning methods are actually activating students
Instructors who self-identify as using active learning methods still spend most of their class time lecturing in many cases, new research shows.
Not all active learning methods are equally conducive to students being actually active in class – and the difference is associated with learning outcomes, new research suggests.
In a study published in Nature Physics, researchers compared four widely used active learning approaches in undergraduate physics and found that two of the four methods, despite their active learning reputation, were in practice still dominated by instructor-led lecturing.
At the same time, the researchers found that students learned significantly more in courses where they spent the majority of class time doing activities.
"We see a lot of variation in how the different methods are carried out in the classroom. And a big difference in how active the students actually are," says Associate Professor Adrienne Traxler, one of the researchers behind the study.
"The results underscore that we need to look closely at what students actually do in the classroom if we're going to understand the connections between method and learning outcomes."
Closely observing students
It's well established in the research that active learning beats passive lectures when it comes to effective teaching. What we know far less about, however, is which active learning method – and which part of that method – produces the best results, says Adrienne Traxler.
But that's not easy to measure. There can be a big difference between which method an instructor claims to follow and what actually happens in practice.
"That also means we can't just talk to instructors or read course descriptions. We had to observe the teaching closely to see when students were actually active, and how," says Adrienne Traxler.
In total, the study is based on 90 new observations of 30 courses from 28 different institutions plus 133 similar observations from prior research. At the same time, the researchers collected learning data using tests administered before and after the semester. A limitation of the study, noted by the researchers, is that there might be important activities happening in parts of the courses, that were not observed eg. in the laboratory.
Activity correlates to learning
Through the observations, the study compared four well-established active learning methods: Peer Instruction, Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE), Tutorials, and SCALE-UP.
In Tutorials and SCALE-UP courses, instructors dedicated most in-class time to student-centred activities like worksheets and lab work, whereas in many Peer Instruction and ISLE courses, instructors still lectured for a large fraction of class time.
We need to look closely at what students actually do in the classroom if we're going to understand the connections between method and learning outcomes.
At the same time, SCALE-UP showed significantly larger gains than either Peer Instruction or ISLE.
"We see a correlation between in-class activity time and learning gains, but we need more insight into this to answer 'why?'," says Adrienne Traxler.
"What part of the method is working – and what can be left out? Is it about the type of activity or the time spent being active? That's the next puzzle."