Avraham Glustein is Head of School of Politz Day School in Cherry Hill, NJ. See the related article here.
You can feel their creative energy flow throughout the classroom! They love the challenge of a new concept, conquering it, and sharing their ideas with each other.
My first impressions of Active Learning were not great ones. The details for implementing the concept of Active Learning in the classroom, followed by a schedule for collection of data left me feeling quite overwhelmed. Moreover, there was an element of confusion for me; how did AL differ from the “hands-on” method for learning already in place in my lesson planning? Needless to say, my reception and perception for this new concept was not well received.
I am pleased, actually pleasantly surprised, to report that after trying and applying AL, it is not so hard to implement….The children love working together to define examples for each concept. You can feel their creative energy flow throughout the classroom! They love the challenge of a new concept, conquering it, and sharing their ideas with each other.
So how does this differ from a “hands-on” lesson? As soon as the children started working on their assignment, the answer became obvious. With a “hands-on” lesson, the children are teacher directed as they participate in lessons. The teacher guides them to draw the correct conclusion. With AL, the concept is initially explained, but the children on their own, do the critical thinking, actively are involved in facilitating the lesson, and finally draw their own correct conclusions or understandings of the new concept.
I plan to continue using it. Time is my biggest obstacle. …. “Where there is a will, there is a way”, we will find the time, because the will is certainly there…and we love our lessons this way!
Jill W. – First Grade