Active Learning Strategies at UGA: Engaging Students for Success

The University of Georgia (UGA) is committed to fostering a dynamic learning environment where students are actively involved in their education. This commitment is reflected in various initiatives aimed at transforming undergraduate courses and enhancing instructional spaces to promote active student engagement. Research consistently demonstrates that active learning leads to improved student engagement, better long-term retention of course content, enhanced competencies, and higher course grades. For UGA, this translates to providing students with a meaningful and impactful classroom experience that benefits them in the long run.

This article will explore the active learning strategies implemented at UGA, including the Active Learning Summer Institute, active learning spaces, and readily applicable techniques for instructors.

What is Active Learning?

Active learning is the adoption of instructional practices that engage students in the learning process (Prince, 2004). Rather than passively receiving information, students actively construct knowledge and reflect on their learning. The instructor's role shifts from a traditional lecturer to an expert guide who facilitates activities and situations where students think critically about the content to achieve desired learning outcomes (Mayer, 2004).

Active learning is not simply about physical activity or movement in the classroom. The focus is on stimulating activity in the brain, providing opportunities for students to think about the material, discuss their thoughts with others, and test out ideas with feedback from instructors and peers. It's about engaging deeply with the content before the final exam (Gingerich et al., 2014).Active learning is not something you can only do in certain spaces. Active learning can be incorporated into traditional large lecture halls.

Active learning is best conceived of as an approach rather than a method since active learning strategies range from simple techniques, such as reflection, to more complex techniques, including case-based and inquiry learning (O’Neal & Pinder-Grover, n.d.). The selection of active learning teaching strategies may draw upon any number of teaching and assessment practices, largely based on the foundational work of Angelo and Cross (1993). Instructors may choose a specific active learning strategy, discussion structure, or assessment technique based on the time and effort they wish to invest or for its alignment with the instructor’s intended goals, the latter helping to anchor the purpose of active learning: better achievement of student learning outcomes (Van Amburgh et al., 2007; Major & Palmer, 2006).

Read also: The Power of Active Learning

Benefits of Active Learning

Active learning offers a multitude of benefits for students, including:

Improved Student Attitudes: Active learning fosters a more positive and engaged attitude towards learning (Baepler, Walker, & Driessen, 2014; Bernstein & Greenhoot, 2014; Bonwell & Eison, 1991; Freeman et al., 2014).
Enhanced Writing and Critical Thinking Skills: Actively engaging with the material promotes deeper understanding and the development of critical thinking abilities (Baepler, Walker, & Driessen, 2014; Bernstein & Greenhoot, 2014; Bonwell & Eison, 1991; Freeman et al., 2014).
Higher Examination Performance: Studies have shown a correlation between active learning strategies and improved performance on exams (Freeman et al., 2014; Gingerich et al., 2014; Ruhl, Hughes, & Schloss, 1987).
Lower Failure Rates: Active learning environments tend to have lower failure rates compared to traditional lecture-based courses (Baepler et al., 2014; Reinholz, 2015).
Improved Conceptual Understanding: Active learning helps students develop a deeper and more nuanced understanding of basic concepts, as well as surface any misconceptions they may have, particularly in the sciences (Hake, 1998; Redish, Saul, & Steinberg, 1997).

UGA Initiatives to Promote Active Learning

UGA has implemented several key initiatives to promote active learning across campus:

Active Learning Summer Institute

The Active Learning Summer Institute grew out of the President’s Task Force on Student Learning and Success. The task force recommended that the University transform courses and classrooms to promote interaction, teamwork, reflection, and other active learning strategies that have been found to increase students’ understanding and long-term retention of material and improve students’ writing and critical thinking skills, among other benefits. Dozens of faculty have participated in UGA’s Active Learning Summer Institute, now in its second year, to discover new ways to engage their students in the learning process. The intensive, multi-week institute, which is led by UGA’s Center for Teaching and Learning, is open to full-time faculty at all levels. By the end of the institute, participating faculty are able to design interactive instructional, assessment, and learning technology strategies that foster ongoing student engagement, motivation, and reflection.

The 32 faculty who participated in last year’s institute already have seen gains in their students’ enjoyment of the classroom experience and performance on exams after redesigning their courses. These faculty now are serving as change champions within their departments, schools, and colleges to educate other faculty members about active learning. A common misconception about ALSI is that it focuses simply on activities that faculty can add to their courses. In reality, it helps faculty clearly define desired learning outcomes and how those outcomes can be assessed during instruction through activities such as problem solving, in-class group work, or individual writing and reflection. James Johnson, a senior lecturer in finance, directs the Benn Capital Markets Lab in Amos Hall and was a participant in this year’s summer institute. “I reworked my lead-in to more closely align with my learning objectives and incorporated in-class group exercises beginning the first day of class. All of my classes responded very positively,” Johnson said. “Student participation and the level of engagement were both noticeably up.

Active Learning Spaces

To help ensure that physical spaces on campus enable active learning, President Morehead created a $1 million fund to transform select traditional classrooms with fixed chairs and tables into active learning spaces. Because active learning is vital to students’ academic success, the University also designated $1 million to transform select traditional classrooms with fixed chairs and tables into spaces that fully support this innovative teaching method. From Park Hall on North Campus to Aderhold Hall on South Campus and in several locations in between, classrooms have been renovated to promote interaction among students and faculty.

Active Learning Summit

With 429 participants, this year’s Active Learning Summit continued to demonstrate its strong foundation at the University of Georgia and its growing national reach. Held at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education and Hotel from Feb. 11-13, the majority of conference attendees - 350 participants - were affiliated with UGA, underscoring the institution’s deep commitment to innovative teaching and learning. “The Active Learning Summit has become a signature space for meaningful collaboration around teaching and learning,” said Leah Carmichael, UGA’s director of active learning and conference organizer. “What’s especially exciting is seeing such strong engagement from our own UGA community alongside growing participation from institutions across the country.

Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP)

To strengthen UGA’s culture of active learning, the University is enhancing instructor development in active learning pedagogies, supporting student understanding of the impact of active learning on their growth and supporting their engagement in the classroom, and enhancing classrooms across campus to provide the greatest flexibility in implementing active learning approaches. Promoting active learning - which is defined broadly as the condition under which students think about what they are learning as they are learning it - was a key recommendation of the university’s 2017 Task Force on Student Learning and Success. “Numerous studies have shown that active learning helps students retain, apply and transfer knowledge,” Munneke said. The quality enhancement plan is still in development, but a few themes have already emerged. New programs are being considered to support the development of instructors, to prepare students to apply an active learning approach to their studies, and to modernize classrooms. The 2021-2022 academic year marks the university’s next reaffirmation cycle by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. In January 2020, President Jere W. Morehead charged an 11-member QEP topic selection committee primarily composed of faculty and also including student representation. The group’s charge was to identify an area of focus for the QEP that aligned with the university’s 2025 Strategic Plan and related institutional efforts.

Simple Active Learning Strategies for the Classroom

Leah Carmichael, Director of Active Learning at UGA, offers several suggestions for active learning strategies that require no advance preparation:

Crowd Crumple

A crowd crumple is an activity that begins when each student writes something down on a piece of paper. Most often, when I use this, I ask students to write a question they have from the material we covered in class that day. For the fun part, they get to ball up the piece of paper and chuck it across the room toward another student. The student that catches the ball of paper uncrumples it and helps to answer the question posed as best as possible. Instructors can choose to have multiple throws where subsequent students add answers to the question posed before sharing some of the questions and answers aloud in the class. It’s a fun activity. And the person asking the question can get answers from peers without having to ask the question aloud.

Think-Pair-Share

Think-Pair-Share is the simplest of activities that can be used in every classroom on campus. First, you start by posing a question to your class. If it’s a class on a classic novel, as your students “Why was the character driven to act this way?” If it is a Math course, put a problem on the board. Next, the instructor gives students a few minutes to think of an answer to the question (and ideally write it down). The third step is to invite students to turn to the person sitting next to them and discuss their answers. As students explain their reasoning to a peer, they are engaging more fully with the material and considering how best to communicate their thoughts to one another. This likely means they are engaging more deeply with the content than if they simply jotted the answer down without discussing it. The final step is to ask partners to share their insights with the class. You can ask someone to summarize their partner’s answer, discuss any similarities the partners had, or even ask students to explain something their partner said that they had not yet considered. By allowing students time to consider their answers individually and in a pair, students feel more confident sharing their insights with the class.

Read also: A Guide to Active Learning

Minute Papers

Sometimes less is more. When it comes to lecturing, instructors often feel they need to use every last minute of class to cover information. However, without meaningful periods of reflection, students may not have time to integrate the new information presented with their preexisting knowledge on the topic. One of the easiest no-prep active learning activities is the Minute Paper. As the name suggests, the instructor stops class early (though it is called a minute paper, I would recommend 2-3 minutes) to ask students to reflect on the material covered.

Overcoming Misconceptions and Resistance

Faculty are also critical in helping minimize student resistance, discomfort and uncertainty about the purposes of active learning strategies. Kimberly Tanner, a biologist at San Francisco State University, explains how she alleviates student apprehension in large lecture halls when doing a “Think-Pair-Share.”Active learning is NOT just about students being physically active and moving around in the classroom. It’s about activity in the brain-providing opportunities during class for students to start thinking about the material, discussing their thinking with others, testing out ideas and strategies with feedback from the instructor and peers-before the final exam (Gingerich et al., 2014).Active learning is NOT something you can only do in certain spaces. Active learning can be incorporated into traditional large lecture halls. See the “Muddiest Point” example below from Gary Green to see how a large lecture hall can become an active learning space for 10 minutes. It is true, however, that flexible learning environments are less constraining than traditional lecture halls (Baepler, 2014).Active learning does NOT make the instructor irrelevant. Quite the contrary! The instructor becomes MORE important in an active learning classroom because their expertise is needed to design meaningful activities, guide students as they work through course material, interact with students, and facilitate reflection on what was learned. As the instructor gathers formative assessment data through these different activities, they gain insight into how students understand the material enabling them to generate new learning experiences that will help students clear up misconceptions or misunderstandings before summative assessments (Bonwell & Eison, 1991; Mayer, 2004).

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