August 2020 – ELA Source

I’ve been doing a lot of research into active vs. passive learning lately in preparation for my fall teaching.

What is active vs. passive learning?

Active learning simply means that students literally take an action while learning, more formally it means that students take an active role in the learning process. But what does that look like in the classroom? In an active learning classroom, the students are not just taking notes, but are taking guided notes, are stopping to discuss and reflect, and are working collaboratively to learn concepts and solve problems. When students are learning passively, they are simply present and listening to a lecture.

Active Learning and Graphic Organizers

One strategy that helps with promoting active learning is the use of graphic organizers. Here is a great YouTube video with explains what graphic organizers are and how they promote active learning:

Here is resource on active learning from the University of Minnesota:

https://cei.umn.edu/active-learning

For more on active vs. passive learning and graphic organizers, be sure to follow the blog.

remote-teaching

Some people prefer to call it ERT, or Emergency Remote Teaching, so as not to normalize the lack of preparation and training many teachers have been given for teaching online this past spring and this fall during a global pandemic. Like many of you, my institution decided to switch to “remote learning” at the last minute, after a summer of promising and preparing to be in-person.

I have some experience teaching online courses and I enjoy it under normal circumstances, but I’ve been exploring different options for course delivery this fall, which includes things like remote synchronous (teaching “live” during scheduled class time), asynchronous (most traditionally online courses are delivered this way) and HyFlex (a combination of three delivery methods when and if in-person instruction is also available). I will be using this post to provide a curated list of resources and links to all three approaches. In helping other teachers, I believe in simplicity, so instead of including an exhaustive and comprehensive list of resources, I’ve included the three I find most helpful. I will also be writing up a few posts about the approach as I plan my fall classes, and will be making up some free resources (such as active learning graphic organizers) to share. Please follow this blog for more!