Beverly A. Buncheris a Certified Empowerment Coach (www.theempowermentcoach.net) , former educator, contributing editor of JEL and its former Editor in Chief. In this article, she offers suggestions for transitioning teachers into using active learning.
Active learning is an umbrella term for classroom activities that put the student in the center of the learning experience as active participants, rather than as passive receptacles for teacher-disseminated knowledge and information. Consistent with research on the way the brain learns, active learning respects the learner’s need for variety, social interaction, and multi-modal learning, while allowing the teacher to utilize student knowledge, experience and curiosity to enhance the learning environment for everyone. While some new and experienced teachers dive into the active approach to teaching and learning, others resist its call, preferring to stick with the tried and true traditional teaching methods they have either used for many years and/ or watched their own teachers before them use.
Over the years, as a teacher and a principal, I thrived on my visits to the classrooms of those teachers committed to studying and implementing research-based practices for the good of all of their students. At the same time, I watched too many other teachers revert to traditional teaching patterns. Some of those were experienced teachers who preferred to rely on lessons they had developed early in their careers, while others were new teachers who were mimicking the traditional approaches they’d seen in the classrooms of their youth rather than use the active approaches they’d studied in school.
The challenge we face is how do we get teachers to take the leap to research-based practice when things seem to be “working” just fine using their traditional methods?
Learning Styles
In preparing to turn a school into an active learning environment, it is worthwhile to begin with the topic of learning styles. When teachers know their own learning styles and the learning styles of their students, they start to understand the different ways people learn and the need to address a variety of learning styles in order to reach all learners. There are many learning styles assessments that you can have both your teachers and students take. Investing in one of these could open your teacher eyes to a whole new understanding of the teaching and learning process.
While many people who go into education do so because schools were comfortable places for them (their learning style matched that of their teachers), many of their fellow students learned very differently from that traditional style of old and never stepped into a school again. By becoming familiar with learning styles, teachers will begin to see clearly that many learners have needs that traditional methods do not meet, but that must be met in order to keep them engaged in classroom learning. That understanding can provide the motivation for teachers who had previously not been interested in changing their teaching style, to do so.
Keep It Simple
Even when the teachers become motivated, a principal trying to engage all of his or her teachers in the process of teaching in a more active, student-centered way, would do well to approach those teachers just as he wants them to approach their students – according to their individual learning styles. For those who are most ensconced in the lecture mode, it may be best to begin by introducing those active learning techniques which require the least amount of extra preparation time, are least intrusive and are most easily inserted into their daily lessons. These techniques are the least threatening to teachers, and do not require a substantive mind-shift in the way they approach their classrooms. I offer here four simple suggestions, two of which can be used for students to do individually and two which can be used by the students in pairs.
- Muddiest or Clearest Point –The teacher pauses during the lesson and asks students to write about what is least and most clear in the lesson thus far. It can be followed by students sharing their views allowed or the papers can be handed in so the teacher can see how all of the students are taking in the lesson (Paulson, Faust).
- KWL (Know, Want to know, have Learned) – The teacher begins a lesson or unit to find out what the students already know about the topic and want to learn, and at the end of the unit to find out what they have learned. It can be done individually or as a class and is usually organized into a KWL Chart (see sidebar). That chart can be posted by the teacher for the whole class, or each student can have an individual copy of in their notebook .
The above are useful for making the learning more active for individual students. The following simple techniques can be easily introduced for use with pairs or small groups of students:
- Note comparison/sharing – The teacher sets aside a few minutes for students to compare notes. This helps students to identify what they understand, what they may have missed, and allows them to fill in gaps. Knowing that this is a part of the class can help students to be both less frantic and more responsible in their note taking and allows students who are good listeners but not good note takers to get the points they missed, while allowing those who are able to do both to reinforce what they’ve learned by sharing it with others (Paulson, Faust). For younger students, the teacher can pass out a model of good note taking on the topic for the students to go over together so they can both fill in their gaps and see what is expected.
- Active Listening –The teacher sets aside a few minutes for students to share with a partner what they’ve heard or learned , listen to the partner’s interpretation and see if there is any need for further clarification. Before the lesson the teacher has the students pick a partner sitting near them and reminds students to listen carefully and take the best notes possible as they will be sharing what they are learning with each other throughout the lesson. Then at several specific points in the lesson, the teacher stops, asks students to first share their understanding of what was just taught with their partner, then listen to their partner’s interpretation, and third together decide if they both understood the points in the same way or if they have questions or gaps they need help with. This can be followed by a whole class Q and A, by notes passed forward with questions and gaps for the teacher to answer, or can be handled by the teacher walking around the room as the pairs are talking, answering questions individually.
For some teachers, just giving them these ideas will be enough to get them moving in a more active direction. Just reading an article or attending a workshop with a demonstration will be enough for them to create change in their classroom, but for many teachers, this may not be enough to create lasting change that has ongoing benefits for students. Many teachers need more.
What’s Standing in the Way
In addition to the powerful pull of doing things as they have always been done, and the anxiety and discomfort that change creates, Bronson and Eison (1991) cite the following obstacles college teachers may have to moving to a more active mode of instruction:
- limited class time
- possible increase in preparation time
- the potential difficulty of using active learning in large classes
- lack of needed materials, equipment, or resources.
- risk–the risks that students will not participate, use higher-order thinking, or learn sufficient content
- potential feeling of a loss of control
- not having the necessary skills
- being criticized for teaching in unorthodox ways
Beyond identifying the obstacles, they write that each obstacle or barrier and type of risk can be successfully overcome through careful, thoughtful planning.
Provide a Supportive Environment
Research on K-12 education supports Bronson and Eison’s conclusion, adding that one of the key ingredients to getting teachers to the point of willingness to participate is to provide an ongoing infrastructure in the school such as a professional learning community in the school which supports teacher growth on an ongoing basis, rather than in one shot deals such as individual workshops on active learning methods or articles for faculty to read.
Based on research done by Bennett, Joyce, and Showers in K-12 schools, Gregory (2005) drew some valuable conclusions for bringing change to teachers. In those schools where only presentation of theory, modeling , practice and low-risk feedback were provided, only 5-10% of the faculty were actually implementing the newly taught methods. But in schools where coaching, study teams and peer visits were also provided, 80-90% of the teachers were actually found not only applying the new methods in their classrooms, but also using what they’d learn to solve their students’ learning problems. The following table outlines their findings:
Relationship between Levels of Impact and Components of Training:
| Level of Impact | Awareness plus | Skill Attainment | Application/Problem Solving |
| Components of Training | Concept Understanding | ||
| Presentation of Theory | 85% | 15% | 5-10% |
| Modeling | 85% | 18% | 5-10% |
| Practice and Low Risk Feedback | 85% | 80% | 10-15% |
| Coaching | 90 | 90% | 80-90% |
| Study teams | |||
| Peer Visits | |||
Source: Gayle Gregory, 2005
As this research shows, the use of peer visits, study teams and coaching can help a principal ease active learning (or any new instructional approach) into teachers’ lives on a daily, ongoing basis. These elements form the core of a professional learning community for its staff, which, amongst other benefits, sees its teachers as professionals who are sources of guidance, strenth and expertise for each other.
The importance of study teams for teachers cannot be overstated. As stated above, schools are filled with a variety of practitioners, some of whom are totally engaged in providing active learning, and others who, for whatever reason, are not. Putting teachers on teams with colleagues who do not do things the way they do can provide opportunities for role modeling, for intense discussions about teaching and learning, and for experimentation and for peer feedback. Study teams who work with the same groups of students can experiment with different active learning methods, discuss their results, refine and retry the methods and see how those changes impact student learning.
By adding peer visits into this process, teachers on the same study team can provide ongoing assistance to each other in the form of giving each other feedback which can help them refine their active learning techniques and other teaching methodologies. The visits can be set up so that teachers on the team know that during a specific period of time, everyone will be practicing specific active learning techniques. By visiting each others’ classrooms, teachers break down the walls of isolation that often stand in the way of teacher improvement. The very possibility of a peer visit can encourage teachers to more regularly include the types of techniques the visitors are looking for in their lesson plans. This gives them more motivation to the use the strategies, more practice at perfecting the methods, more comfort using the methods with their students regularly, and more experience with both giving and receiving peer feedback . In addition, peer visits to classrooms where these methods are already in full swing provides important modeling for teachers who are learning to incorporate these methods as well as recognition for those who already have.
Overcoming Resistance to Change
The third essential sited in the above table as critical for increasing the number of teachers in a school who are able to apply and analyze new teaching techniques and methods is coaching. For teachers with minimal resistance, peer coaching will be enough to bring about the changes needed to impact their instructional practice. But for others, professional intervention will be needed and will be much more effective. Therefore, coaching is defined here as a confidential, on-going, one-on-one partnership between a trained coach and a teacher, designed to help the teacher reach specific goals (whether established by the teacher or by the school). In this model, the coach asks the teacher open ended questions about their teaching practice which are designed to help the teacher look at all aspects of the way they teach and the way their students learn, in order to help the teacher grow and develop in their practice.
Coaching also includes activities and exercises designed to stretch the teacher’s sense of what is possible in the classroom. Its power to bring about teacher change is in the nature of the interactive partnership between the coach and the teacher, which centers around teacher-centered goal-setting and action-planning, and also includes several methods for breaking through the personal obstacles cited above by Bronwell and Eison, which the teacher may encounter along the way to changing his or her practice. In order for the teacher to feel comfortable delving into the core reasons for their resistance to change, it is best if the coach is someone brought into the school setting from the outside; a certified coach who is able to stay objective and non-judgmental as the teacher faces his or her challenges, someone who is neither supervisor, evaluator, nor current colleague of the teacher, but only a supportive partner in the process of change.
The job of an instructional coach in a school is to support and encourage teachers as they confront the disparity between their knowledge of research-based practice and their own practice. To help them see that this process of becoming a research-based teaching practitioner is not about following fads. Nor is it about changing things that don’t need to be changed. It is about following the research and coming to conclusions about what applies in which situation.
Though change is difficult, every teacher wants to know they’ve done their best to reach as many of their students as they possibly could. The wonderful thing about becoming more knowledgeable about how the brain learns and how this knowledge applies to teaching and learning, is that it gives the teacher additional tools to use when little Shmueli or Sara is not learning the way the teacher is teaching. That in itself provides powerful motivation for teachers to change and for schools to wholeheartedly encourage and support that change.
References:
Bonwell, Charles and Eison, James. “Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom”.NTLF. published 1991 ERIC Digest. http://www.ntlf.com/html/lib/bib/91-9dig.htm
Gregory, Gayle. “Instructional Intelligence: Thinking about Quality Teaching and Learning.” Presented January 2005. Gregorygayle@netscape.net
Paulson, Donald R. and Faust, Jennifer L., “Active Learning for the College Classroom” http://www.calstatela.edu/dept/chem/chem2/Active/