Towards Active Learning

1
In at the deep end
Approaches to learning and teaching
Queens University, Belfast
Phil Race Visiting Professor Assessment,
Learning and Teaching, Leeds Metropolitan
University Tuesday 13 May 2008
2
Intended learning outcomes

• After participating in this workshop, you will be
  better able to
• Respond in your teaching to how students actually
  learn
• Maximise the learning payoff of your students in
  various learning contexts, including large-group
  teaching
• Give more students better feedback in less time!
• (Im now coming back on 5th June to run a whole
  workshop on feedback, starting 2.00 pm).
• 4. Address particular problems you may have in
  mind as you start teaching here.

3
In at the deep end

• For colleagues at Leeds Met, Ive written an
  accompanying booklet called in at the deep end.
  Many other institutions have already produced
  their own site-licensed versions of this in the
  UK, Ireland, Hong Kong, Denmark and Australia.
• This workshop is therefore designed to complement
  the content of the booklet, rather than to mirror
  it.

4
Reference materials

• Race, P and Pickford, R (2007) Making teaching
  Work London Sage Publications.
• Race, P (2006) The Lecturers Toolkit 3rd
  edition London Routledge.
• Race P (2005) Making learning happen London Sage
  Publications.
• (theres a compendium of writings on feedback
  as a download near the top of the downloads
  page on my website).
• Knight P and Yorke M (2003) Assessment, learning
  and employability Maidenhead, UK SRHE/Open
  University Press.
• Bowl M (2003) Non-traditional entrants to higher
  education they talk about people like me Stoke
  on Trent, UK, Trentham Books.
• See also http//www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/ftp
  /newsletters/bulletin22.pdf
• (Ill put the main slides Ive used up on my
  website www.phil-race.com tomorrow, and leave
  them there for a few days I dont believe in
  3-per-page PowerPoint slides theres a short
  discussion about this on my website too).

5
Name labels

• Please write your first name, big and bold, on a
  coded sticky label, and stick it to your clothing
  (not onto a fabric which would be damaged).

?A3
Phil
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Getting to know students

• Asking students to write their names on labels
  helps them to get to know each other, and helps
  us to know what they want to be called.
• When they feel theyre known to us as individuals
  (in a good way), theyre less likely to drop out
  especially in big groups in HE.
• Labels are cheap and environmental-friendly.
• The codes can be used to get students into
  different group configurations, or to quiz the
  whole class.

7
Face-to-face one-to-one feedback activity

• Please work in pairs, moving around the room,
  talking to different people using the script
  which follows
• The script
• A Hello.
• B Hello.
• A You are late.
• B I know.
• Try to do it completely differently each time.

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The power of face-to-face communication

• When explaining assessment criteria to students,
  and when linking these to evidence of achievement
  of the intended learning outcomes, we need to
  make the most of face-to-face whole group
  contexts and,,,
• Tone of voice
• Body language
• Facial expression
• Eye contact
• The chance to repeat things
• The chance to respond to puzzled looks
• Some things cant work nearly so well just on
  paper or on screens.

9
Post-it exercise

• Please add your own completion to the starter
• Teaching would be much better for me if only I
• Swap post-its, so you no longer know who has
  yours.
• If chosen, please read out with passion and drama
  whats on the post-it you now have.
• Please stick them all on the chart.

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Post-its

• A small, equal opportunities,
• non-threatening space.
• Just about everyone is willing to jot something
  down on a post-it in answer to a question,
  whereas they may not offer a spoken answer to a
  question, or write responses on a blank sheet of
  paper.
• Post-its allow everyone the same opportunity to
  respond, including the quiet or shy students.
• Post-its can be swapped, and students can read
  out someone elses ideas, in the relative comfort
  of anonymity.

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Finding out where a group is starting from

• Post-its are particularly useful for open-ended
  questions, such as economics would be much
  better for me if only I
• Responses can be posted on a flipchart or wall,
  and used as an exhibit.
• They can be photocopied and returned to students.
• Post-its can be a fast way of finding out what
  the real intended learning outcomes are for a
  group.
• They can also provide a measure of the learning
  incomes of the group.

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How students really learn

• The full set of slides on this topic is on my
  website as ripples model. Well just look at a
  few parts of this today.

Five factors underpinning successful
learning (and teaching)
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Making learning happen in lectures

• The most important thing to achieve in lectures
  is learning payoff for students. They should
  leave with more in their heads than they came in
  with - not just with a load of information on
  handouts and nothing in their heads.
• My workshop explores what students actually DO
  during lectures, and what we DO ourselves. We
  then look at which actions (theirs and ours) are
  most likely to result in learning payoff.

14
Setting the scene

• In many contexts, student numbers continue to
  increase, not least as a result of widening
  participation policies. It is well established
  that just sitting in traditional lectures is not
  the best way for students to achieve high
  learning payoff.
• This workshop will explore how we can refresh the
  teaching approaches we use in large-group
  contexts, to maximise students learning then and
  there, rather than merely hope that they will go
  away and learn later from our handouts and their
  notes.

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Keeping students active

• We will look creatively at what we can get
  students to do even in crowded lecture theatres
  or large classrooms, to keep them learning
  actively.
• We will look at the value of expressing intended
  learning outcomes near the start of each session,
  so that students are aware of what they should be
  gaining from the session, and returning to these
  outcomes near the end of each session to help
  students to reflect on the progress they feel
  they have made.

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Galileo

• You cannot teach a man anything. You can only
  help him to find it for himself.
• Women?

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More quotes

• I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make
  them think Socrates.
• The only real mistake is the one from which we
  learn nothing. - John Powell
• Learning is not a spectator sport. - D. Blocher.

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And more

• The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher
  explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The
  great teacher inspires - William Arthur Ward.
• The biggest enemy to learning is the talking
  teacher. - John Holt.
• Education is what survives when what has been
  learned has been forgotten. - B. F. Skinner.
• To know yet to think that one does not know is
  best Not to know yet to think that one knows
  will lead to difficulty. - Lao-Tzu (6th century
  B.C.)

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Anxieties about large-group teaching

• Some people are naturals at large-group
  teaching, and dont mind working with hundreds of
  students at a time.
• Others find it stressful.
• But if we concentrate on what learners do during
  our sessions, rather than on what we do, it often
  gets a great deal better.

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What people have told us

• Dont worry the HoD said to me. Dont think of
  them as 320 students sitting there watching your
  every move. Just think of them as 640 eyes all
  looking at YOU!.
• I was sick actually physically sick. I threw
  up in the toilets. Id done my preparation, but I
  walked into the room white and shaking. Im OK
  with large groups now, but that first time was
  the worst moment in my life.

Phil Race and Sally Brown from The ILTA Guide
presently on Guardian Online
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To lecture, or not to lecture?

• Theres been a lot of research proving that
  lecturing does not necessarily cause learning
  to happen effectively.
• Yet large-group lectures continue to be the
  mainstay of university teaching.
• Why?

22
Some quotes about lectures

• I would deliver lectures that got standing
  ovations, but later in the tests and essays, it
  was clear to me that the students just didnt get
  it. (Daniel Greenberg)
• The first duty of a lecturer to hand you after
  an hours discourse a nugget of pure truth to
  wrap up between the pages of your notebooks and
  keep on the mantelpiece for ever (Virginia Woolf)
• The lecture should be the jewel in the crown of
  both the student and lecturer experience in the
  21st century. Never before has there been such an
  opportunity to inspire in the lecture theatre.
  (Ruth Pickford).

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Creative brainstorm why we lecture

• To get a lot of info across to a lot of students?
• To give students a framework into which they can
  integrate new material?
• To highlight what we want students to be aware
  of?
• To get them interested?
• To pave the way towards them passing the
  assessment?

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What are we trying to do?

• Offer a shared learning experience
• Inspire and motivate students
• Provide a topical/relevant gloss to our material
• Help students make sense of what they are
  learning
• Provide course cohesion
• Brief students about what we expect of them
• Help them see the wood for the trees
• Tell them things.

25
Some less positive reasons

• Its what students expect.
• Its what Im timetabled to do.
• Its the way its done round here.
• I havent time/energy/resources to do it any
  other way.

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How appropriate is lecturing?

• There has been an information explosion, and this
  is continuing.
• We are in the middle of a communications
  revolution.
• We no longer need to use large group sessions to
  transmit information to students.
• The transmit-receive model never really worked!
• The receiver makes the message.
• But most of the receivers are switched off.
• Many of the transmitters are not too hot!

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Whats different nowadays?

• The impact of IT in the classroom
  (PowerPoint,interactive opportunities,
  multimedia)
• The impact of IT outside the classroom (access to
  web-based resources)
• Changes in student expectations/ experiences (MTV
  generation, paying customers, earning, caring
  responsibilities)

28
What is very much the same?

• Large numbers of students
• Uncomfortable/unhelpful environments
• A dependency culture
• Timeslots of 1 hour or less
• Pressure to get through the material.

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What do students want?

• A good set of notes
• Explanations, illumination, inspiration
• The chance to feel part of the collective
  learning experience
• Opportunities to ask questions and seek
  clarification.

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What goes wrong? (students)

• Boredom, attention deficit, alternative
  activities, getting lost, getting annoyed with
  other students, getting irritated by the
  lecturer, sleeping, struggling to make links,
  finding the material going over your head,
  failing to keep up with note making, copying
  things down wrongly, failing to see the point,
  writing down without understanding (you can
  extend this list a lot!)

31
What goes wrong? (staff)

• Anxiety, going too fast, going too slowly, losing
  your place, forgetting where you left off last
  week, interruptions from students, not knowing
  answers to questions, equipment failure, external
  interruptions, running out of material, getting
  tongue tied (you can extend this list too!)

32
What do our students actually do in our lectures?
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Designing teaching to maximise learning

• We can each address these five factors in our
  large-group teaching.
• We can try to get our students to want to learn.
• We can help them see the point, and take
  ownership of the need to learn.
• We can keep them busy, learning by doing,
  practice, trial and error, repetition.
• We can help them to make sense of what they are
  learning
• particularly by making sure that they get
  feedback on what they are doing and thinking.

Wanting/ Needing
Doing
Making sense
Feedback
34
Designing teaching to maximise learning

• We can each address these five factors in our
  large-group teaching.
• We can try to get our students to want to learn.
• We can help them see the point, and take
  ownership of the need to learn.
• We can keep them busy, learning by doing,
  practice, trial and error, repetition.
• We can help them to make sense of what they are
  learning
• particularly by making sure that they get
  feedback on what they are doing and thinking.

35
Working out what makes learning happen in lectures

• Lets explore how we can maximise the learning
  payoff for our students in large-group teaching
  contexts

36
What do students actually do in your lectures?

• Privately, please jot down a list of things which
  your students do in your lectures.
• Make them all ing words or phrases.

37
Please use flipcharts

• Then write each of the main ing words or
  phrases on separate post-its, plastering them
  randomly on the flipcharts.
• Next, please re-arrange your post-its in order of
  learning payoff for students, in diamond-9
  formation (but you can have more than 9).

38
What students do, in order of learning payoff
Most productive in students learning
9
8
7
5
4
6
2
3
Less productive
1
39
What QUB students do

• High learning payoff
• evaluating
• Applying
• Doing e,g, finding
• Discussing
• Acting
• Formulating
• Thinking
• Questioning
• Problem solving
• Puzzling

• Low learning payoff
• Complaining
• Disrupting
• Attending
• Sleeping
• Daydreaming

40
What Tallaght students do

• High learning payoff
• Questioning
• Solving
• Breathing
• Practising
• Listening
• Discussing
• (Learning)
• Asking
• Writing
• Answering
• (concentrating)
• Reading

• Low learning payoff
• Slagging
• Worrying
• Leaving
• Messing
• Defacing
• Sleeping
• Writing
• Nothing

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What Limerick students do

• High learning payoff
• Engaging
• (learning)
• Doing
• Listening
• Interacting
• Analysing
• Reflecting
• Ripping apart
• Discussing
• Presenting
• Disagreeing
• Answering

• Low learning payoff
• Talking to each other
• Daydreaming
• Snoozing
• Reading
• Eating
• Listening

42
Syddansk students highest learning payoff
actions in lectures

• High
• Wondering
• Reflecting
• (understanding)
• Thinking
• Discussing
• Concentrating
• Arguing
• Appreciating
• Asking questions
• Linking
• Laughing

• Low
• Sleeping
• Mind-wandering
• Sms-ing
• Waiting
• Manicuring
• Getting annoyed

43
What students do, and factors underpinning
successful learning
Wanting Needing Doing Feedback Making sense
Enthusing students, empowering them, giving them
things they enjoy doing.
Please annotate your post-its showing which
factors underpinning successful learning are
involved in each of the activities youve
chosen. Some activities will have more than one
of D ,F, W, N, M. Use a 3-point scale, e.g. WWW
for a great deal of wanting effect, WW and
W.
Giving students ownership of the need, showing
them what they need to become able to achieve,
helping them to see the point of it all.
Getting them going and keeping them going, giving
students practice, learning through mistakes,
repetition, avoiding logjams or blocks.
Making sure that students get feedback, from us,
and from each other, and from all the rest of
their learning environment, including online.
Making the feedback friendly.
Helping students to get their heads round ideas
and concepts, digesting information to add to
their knowledge, increasing their understanding.
44
What students do, and factors underpinning
successful learning
Wanting Needing Doing Feedback Making sense
Enthusing students, empowering them, giving them
things they enjoy doing.
Giving students ownership of the need, showing
them what they need to become able to achieve,
helping them to see the point of it all.
Getting them going and keeping them going, giving
students practice, learning through mistakes,
repetition, avoiding logjams or blocks.
Making sure that students get feedback, from us,
and from each other, and from all the rest of
their learning environment, including online.
Making the feedback friendly.
Helping students to get their heads round ideas
and concepts, digesting information to add to
their knowledge, increasing their understanding.
(Please use multiples e.g. WMMFDD and a
3-point scale for each)
45
What students do
Most productive
9
How well can we tell, at the time, that these
are giving learning payoff? A very well B
quite well C sometimes D not really E not
at all (we can find out later, of course)
8
7
5
4
6
2
3
Least productive
1
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What students do
Most productive
For what proportion of the time do students
actually do these things? H high proportion M
medium proportion L low proportion
9
2
7
5
6
4
How well can we tell? A very well B quite
well C sometimes D not really E not at all
8
7
Least productive
9
47
What students do
Most productive
For what proportion of the time do students
actually do these things? 3 high proportion 2
medium proportion 1 low proportion
9
2
7
5
6
4
How well can we tell? 5 very well 4 quite
well 3 sometimes 2 not really 1 not at all
8
7
Least productive
9
48
What can we do to make sure students have high
learning payoff?

• The same sort of analysis can be done as weve
  done for what students do.

49
Teaching smarter we need to

• Strive to enhance our students want to learn
• Help students to develop ownership of the need to
  learn
• Keep students learn by doing, practice,
  trial-and-error, repetition
• Ensure students get quick and useful feedback
  from us and from each other
• Help students to make sense of what they learn.

Wanting/ Needing
Doing
Making sense
Feedback
50
How we can help our students to learn more
effectively, efficiently, and enjoyably

• We can strive to enhance our students want to
  learn
• Making learning fun to get them involved in their
  learning
• Pointing out why were teaching it, and why
  theyre learning it
• Sharing our passion and enthusiasm with them, so
  they become enthused

Wanting/ Needing
Doing
Making sense
Feedback
51
How we can help our students to learn more
effectively, efficiently, and enjoyably

• We can help students to develop ownership of the
  need to learn
• Alerting them to what we expect of them what
  the targets are
• Explaining how the learning will be useful to
  them in their studies, lives and careers
• Illustrating how even the most complex things are
  learned a little at a time

Wanting/ Needing
Doing
Making sense
Feedback
52
How we can help our students to learn more
effectively, efficiently, and enjoyably

• We can keep our students learning by doing,
  practice, trial-and-error, repetition
• Keeping them learning actively in our lectures,
  tutorials, seminars, online learning, and
  independent studying
• Helping students to feel good about learning
  through mistakes
• Helping students to identify what practice will
  make perfect

Wanting/ Needing
Doing
Making sense
Feedback
53
How we can help our students to learn more
effectively, efficiently, and enjoyably

• We can ensure students get quick and useful
  feedback from us and from each other
• Making sure they get feedback quickly enough
  while they still care about it
• Ensuring that they get plenty of feed-forward, so
  they can make their next piece of work better
• Helping them to get a great deal of feedback from
  each other, including from peer-assessment

Wanting/ Needing
Doing
Making sense
Feedback
54
How we can help our students to learn more
effectively, efficiently, and enjoyably

• We can help students to make sense of what they
  learn
• Explaining to them how we got our heads around
  complex ideas in the past
• Making it OK for the light not yet to have
  dawned
• Enabling students to make sense of things they
  have just mastered by explaining them to students
  who havent yet grasped them

Wanting/ Needing
Doing
Making sense
Feedback
55
Intended learning outcomes

• Do you now feel better able to
• (Two hands much better
• One hand somewhat better
• No hands no better!)
• Respond in your teaching to how students actually
  learn?
• Maximise the learning payoff of your students in
  various learning contexts, including large-group
  teaching?
• Give more students better feedback in less time?
  (Will be addressed on June 5th, at 2.00 pm.)
• Address particular problems you may have in mind
  as you start teaching here?

56
Action planning statements

• One thing Im going to do is
• One idea Im taking away is
• Im going to think more about
• I have found out that
• Id like to know
• In future, Im not going to

Monday, 29 June 2009
57
Thank you www.Phil-Race.com e-mail
p.race_at_leedsmet.ac.uk