Active Learning

Currently I am taking a Learning and Teaching in Higher Education course. One of the interesting topics that we have talked about is active learning.

Active Learning: Why It Matters in a Digital World

After exploring this topic in class I found this very interesting article on TopHat. TopHat is an educational resource that I myself used within my undergraduate degree. ->

Active learning was created to engage students directly into their course work through activities like exercises and classroom strategies to make them interact immediately while applying their knowledge.

Digital technologies have been used to help achieve those goals. With the creation and wide distribution of smartphones and tablets, these technologies have become a catalyst for active learning tech use. Applications and student engagement sites are allowing teachers to use active learning in their classrooms easier.

With the digital collection of information having seamless ease, educators can sort through and find real-time data. As mentioned in the article, minute papers, quizzes, and muddiest-point exercises can be used within the classroom on a more comfortable basis; these are also being created and implemented in old media, like textbooks, with an online component. Additionally, these tactics are being incorporated into the pages of digital textbooks.

The article reinforced that digital media is how today’s generation of students is learning. Most of the incoming classes are younger than Google and fully incorporated into technology, with it being an extension of their persona. With this generation considering less physical print-based media, their parents are being exposed to more information and knowledge than those that came before them. Screens and digital media being tools of their everyday life educators will be required to turn to these tools to gain trust, interest and active learning.

-A

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