Instructors and educators in every field strive to engagelearners in active learning—a term that refers to educational activities wherelearners engage with the material, thinking and commenting on concepts andideas and collaborating with other learners.
The early days of eLearning, when content was pushed tolearners in text or lecture, relied heavily on passive learning. The often-unenthusiasticresponse from learners and less-than-stellar results underline the limits of apassive learning paradigm. Fortunately, eLearning is well beyond the days oftext-heavy self-directed learning and lengthy taped lectures.
What is active learning?
Managers and eLearning designers can use a number ofapproaches to encourage active learning. These opportunities are present bothwithin the framework of formal training, including eLearning and virtualclassrooms, and in environments where employees seek learning through socialand professional networks or collaboration with colleagues. However andwherever it occurs, though, active learning includes these features:
- It’sorganic—Learners take initiative in completing activities and even in designingthem. Managers can encourage this activity by curating high-quality content, byfacilitating the use of social networks like Yammer and Slack among employeesacross different departments and work groups, and by making it safe foremployees to experiment, even if they sometimes “fail.”
- It’s apriority—A key reason, often the number-one reason, that employees cite forlack of participation or engagement in learning activities is lack of time.Their “real” duties and responsibilities always take precedence. Managers cancommunicate the need to actively engage in learning both by setting an example—takingpart in learning activities—and by making it not only possible but easy foremployees to set aside time that is earmarked for learning. If learningactivities are given the weight of a job duty or assignment, learners will bebetter able to justify spending time on them and more likely to engage ratherthan rush through.
- It’s fun—Instructionaldesigners at Booz Allen Hamilton created eLearning for international financeprofessionals that used themes like a spy mission and an international journey,hoping that fun eLearning would engage learners. It worked! Learners applaudedthe training—even the required ethics and compliance course on international traderegulations. “The learners loved it; they loved collecting the passport stamps,”said Liz Gusmati, a lead associate and member of the design team. (Read more ina case study that will be published in LearningSolutions Magazine on June 20.)
Why encourage active learning?
A pernicious myth dogs instructional designers: the ideathat learning should be delivered in ways compatible with learners’ variedlearning styles.
Learning styles do not exist; there is no evidence, despiteconsiderable research, that people learn better—that learning outcomesimprove—if information is presented in their preferred “style.” Nor is the ideaof “left- or right-brained” individuals grounded in science or research.
Learners do, of course, have clear preferences for how andwhen they consume content. That means that offering content in multiple formatsand providing choices is one key to increasing engagement or active learning. And research does showthat active learning is more “sticky” than passive learning.
The reliance on learning styles is not the only myth thatdamages the quality of learning. For instance, Ulrich Boser, author of Learn Better and a senior fellow at theCenter for American Progress, found that a majority of the people he surveyed believethat reading and rereading material, possibly highlighting key sections, is agood way to learn. And that informal quizzes are not helpful.
But the opposite is true.
“Researchers from across the field argue that more engagedforms of education—such as quizzing, explaining, or teaching others—producemuch better student outcomes and a deeper grasp of material,” Boser writes in “What Do People Know About Excellent Teaching and Learning?”
How to spark active learning
Informal quizzes, whether administered by an instructor orself-testing, are a proven method of active learning—but quizzes are far fromthe only way to promote active learning. Any exercise where learners applyinformation counts as active learning; these include scenarios where learnerschoose an action, role-playing games, solving challenge questions, or pair orsmall-group discussion and analysis of problems or situations. Encouragingreflection, which can be individual—five-minute writing prompts, for example—orcollaborative, is another great way to facilitate active learning.
In a virtual classroom, using tools like group chat orbreakout rooms helps break up the potential monotony of requiring learners tosit through endless slides—while also engaging them in, you guessed it, activelearning. Even asking learners to type responses to open-ended questions intothe class chat window can encourage discussion and get their brains workingharder.
Themore learners examine information that they are learning in a context thatapplies it to real-world job skills or problems, the deeper the learning willbe and the longer they will retain it.
