Engaging Students in Active Learning
Fall 2008

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2 spots are open

What people say about this LearnShop...
"The greatest strength was the diversity of the faculty taking part and all the new things we all learned from each other."
-- participant from the Spring 2003 class

more quotes...

Active Learning Evaluations: Fall 2003

9. How have you changed the way you teach since taking this class?

• From my first experience several years ago I have been adding to my repertoire of activities. Each time I take a learnshop I take away something new.
• I look at the subject matter to determine how to best adapt the learning structures to effective presentation of the subject.
• Well, I have tried to incorporate more active/collaborative exercises in both my literature and composition classes. I have only used a couple of exercises in literature this semester, but I have started planning on how to use it more for my future classes. Probably became about 30% of what I now do in the classroom.
• Although I have been using active learning as well as cooperative techniques for years, this learnshop helped to improve the way I run my workshops, I learned a few good structures that will help my students to learn, and added to my enthusiasm for teaching. I really felt it was easily one of the best of these types of sessions that I have ever attended.
• I have incorporated different methods of forming groups and measuring learning objectives.
• Mostly little things within group activities that I have already been doing -- like giving fixed times to finish tasks, calling on specific people in specific groups, and assigning tasks to individuals within groups. It can be a little hard changing course in a major way mid-semester; there are more things I am going to try next semester.
• I have adapted many of the teaching methodologies and activities in a modified format for use in distance learning classes.
• I have adopted some of the exercises I learned from this workshop in my classes.
• I have already incorporated a few of the activities into my current class and certainly intend to do more of it next semester. I probably won't have standard teams that last for a long period of time, but will use lots of the activities to develop new teams every few weeks.
• I am able to bring a lot more warmth to the class, keeping students more engaged than I did before taking this course.
• I have tried using several of the active learning/cooperative learning strategies. I will continue to use them next semester to improve student learning and involvement.
• I have incorporated several active learning strategies into my current classes and plan more for next semester.
• I am different in recognizing the value in cooperative learning exercises. Students are not bored, but engaged.
• I have started applying varying techniques taught in the class, both with in-person courses and internet courses.

10. What were the strengths of this workshop?

• Melinda's attitude. She models great behavior and shows her enthusiasm for the techniques.
• The instructor. Her experience and ability to make information relevant.
• Strengths included Melinda's experience, enthusiasm, and flexibility, as well as the diversity of the students and disciplines represented in the classroom. Also the evidence in favor of collaborative structures was really convincing enough to make me know I need to use it in some capacity.
• The instructor was genuine, supportive, knowledgeable, and active - a shining example of a great instructor. Besides Melinda being wonderful, we practiced what we were learning during the learnshop. That is, we cooperated together to learn cooperative learning structures.
• Melinda has a lot of enthusiasm for the topics - I can tell she really believes in, and knows her stuff about active learning, and is committed to improving the classroom experience for all. It is also neat that learning and practicing the activities go hand in hand.
• Excellent teacher, good content.
• Interactive teaching methods and class demonstration the last two class sessions.
• Great student interaction, many new ideas, always a positive format.
• Taught many useful techniques, which will help my students to understand the subject, also it was a great workshop to learn from other faculty and their methods of teaching.
• The interaction of our teams. We worked together, but were often put into new groups. This allowed us to practice the methods we were learning and experience them as a student would. It was also very interesting to see how other instructors adapt the concepts to their own particular disciplines. I came home the last night thinking we have a wonderful group of instructors at Maricopa!
• The greatest strength was the diversity of the faculty taking part and all the new things we all learned from each other.
• We learned the concepts by being involved not just in theory.
• The activities we practiced as a group. We got some real time to experience these exercises as learners and it was great.
• Strengths include a warm moderator (Melinda) who makes the atmosphere very comfortable, the giving and sharing of ideas by participants, the wide-ranging array of activities, and the camaraderie developed among the participants.

11. Do you have any suggestions for improving this workshop?

• Intersperse the student presentations, instead of having them all at the end at once.
• None. I hope to attend any advanced sessions or other workshops with Melinda.
• It would help if everyone were always prepared for class, but that is the same in all of our classes. Also we are all so busy that sometimes you just can't have everything done. I know I am guilty, but with seven English classes, I am extremely busy and Melinda was very understanding, flexible, and patient.
• Maybe have the students do a few group processing exercises at the end of class sessions. However, whether or not we had group processing did not detract from the value of the class.
• Support Melinda's requests to get group/individual selector/spinners for us. Skip assigning the research/statistics-laden (or leave it for later)... we are convinced we should be there, and it got me off on the wrong foot with our book. There is so much stuff that's really good. Also, it seemed we occasionally spent way too long trying to sort out instructions (or renegotiate them for ourselves). A possible subject for the advanced workshop might be streamlining (fast and clear) some of the more troublesome instructions (given to students).
• Don't change a thing -- Melinda is also the perfect instructor for this class. She has a true passion for active/cooperative learning.
• If it is possible and time allows, I would like to see body of students giving us (faculty) presentations on how active learning techniques are being used in their classes and how they have learned the subject effectively through various methods.
• We didn't get our personal "spinners." Also, if there were some sort of randomizer (like spinners) that could be used on a PC with a presentation system that would be really nice. I don't teach in a room with an overhead -- only have a presentation system.
• Format and delivery style to me are satisfactory. I would keep it that way.
• The last presentations could have been timed better. Some groups took much longer than the original 10-15 minute guideline.
• Streamline the notebook. I would like to see a section summarizing the contents, like 1) group selection techniques, in which there are short, concise descriptions of the techniques. Same for types of groupings, like think-pair-share, in which they also give short examples. I would also like to see more examples for those of us who teach computer classes. I would rather have the workshop on a few full-day Fridays. The commute was so time consuming for me, that I don't know if I want to take any more classes at DO in that time arrangement.
• Just allow more time for most activities so that ideas can be best digested.

12. What other topics would you like presented for Faculty Professional Growth credit in the future?

• More on the seven intelligences, and using the cultural diversity of the class to enhance student-learning outcomes.
• I think an advanced class on active learning would be useful, but I hear that is in the works. Otherwise a course on class assessment and/or on critical thinking would also be helpful.
• I am really interested in classroom management techniques, as well as practical and useful assessment strategies.
• I would like to see more courses on critical thinking - at all levels.
• I would very much like to see topics such as "How to Motivate Your Students to Learn."
• An advanced course in this might be really interesting.
• How to keep the "hard-to-listen" kind of student engaged in classroom activities.
• Maybe more active learning strategies focusing on the use of technology. I think there were many more strategies that we could learn and explore if there was more time.
• Ideas for assessment, psychology of student learning, using humor, dealing with problem students.
• E-cheating and plagiarism - ways to deal with the huge rise in cheating with the use of the Net.