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Transcript: Active learning: moving forwards

Chapter 1

Voice-over:

Active learning covers a wide range of approaches, which involve learners in constructing knowledge, practicing skills and collaborating with their peers.

Sarah Benjamin:

You can take a subject such as IT and make it active, rather than it being the traditional way of at the board talking, students listening. Now it's students being active, taking part while the teacher is observing in some cases. And so it kind of changes the perspective of how they're actually learning.

Carole Holmes:

I've noticed quite a difference in the learners as a whole with active learning. They become much more focussed; they become much more engaged in what's happening. They feel that they're participating on an equal level with the tutor rather then being dominated by the tutor in the class. It gives them the chance to have their say and the confidence to say it.

Learner:

I feel you learn more because there's just loads of you and you'll all giving ideas and that to each other. So you think, you put it together and then you come out with, like, the correct answer.

Elaine Szpytma:

A lot of learners that come into IT are very isolated for a variety of different reasons. And they expect to be able to sit on a computer because they don't have to interact socially with anybody else. Using this type of activity reduces that and actually helps them to improve working groups and then share ideas with other members of the group, which helps to build confidence.

Voice-over:

Group work is a key element of active learning, which enables learners to develop interpersonal skills.

Elaine Szpytma:

A learner working in isolation can't share their thoughts or ideas with anybody else. What you get with these sorts of activities is lots of learners coming together, sharing ideas, bouncing ideas off each other and then collaborating to actually agree what they think that the right solution is.

Colin Tymm:

There have been students that have been in the past unwilling to come forward with answers and they've been far more willing to come forward with answers within a group of three or four students.

Carole Holmes:

You could have a lesson where the students just don't talk to each other until the end of the lesson because they're concentrating so hard in front of the screens. To get them away from the screens is very important. It improves their social skills and it improves their understanding of the world around them if you actually set the activity correctly.

Colin Tymm:

We've got so many students that their communications skills were very limited. But as we've developed the peer support groups they've come out of their shell more. They will talk to us a lot more about how they feel about an activity and they're evaluating those activities and bringing back a lot of feedback.

Beverley Swatton:

It's brilliant having computers. One computer to a student - you can't get away from that. That is fantastic. But somewhere or other there must be a central point where they can just sit round tables. So if you want to do something off the computer you're not sitting in front of a computer.

Elaine Szpytma:

It makes the activity easier for them because they get to share ideas and answers with other people in the group. It takes away the fear of them giving the wrong answer, because the whole group have agreed it and it's a group answer. It allows you to discuss the answers with the whole class, so if one group has got it wrong we can then open it up to the rest of the class.

Learner:

If we did it alone I think it wouldn't be the same really. So yeah, we had a good debate as well.

Chapter 2

Voice-over:

At a higher level, well-managed active learning sessions offer the opportunity for learners to deepen their knowledge of a subject through explaining ideas to others and by relating content to real-world examples.

Colin Tymm:

The more able learners are going away and are able not just to understand the principle - they are able to explain that principle to another learners. And they are able to support other learners by demonstrating to them how those activities have actually taken place. So it's one thing to be able to understand what's being learnt; it's a much stronger thing to actually be able to explain to somebody else how to do a certain task.

Carole Holmes:

Students have actually chosen the course because they believe it is all practical, but there is a lot of theory involved. And it's the way in which you approach that theory that becomes very important in the way they take on the learning that you would like them to. We need to make sure that we include active learning to ensure that they're engaged, they are looking at life and the world outside in a different way and not just expecting it to be in front of them on a screen. They need to become involved in the reality of life really and that's why it's very important that we use it that way.

IT teachers, tutors and trainers can develop their understanding of active learning approaches during staff development sessions using the resources as a focus.

To ensure that these ideas were related and practised within our team, inspiring better practices within the division, I set out with a training programme for our staff, which became part of the continuous professional development agenda. And as such we were able to look at these resources, to practise them within the training sessions that we had; critically evaluate how best they could be extended for our cohorts; and get shared feedback during the next training session we had.

Voice-over:

Teachers, tutors and trainers are now exploring active learning in depth, enabling them to make learning even more effective.

Learner:

It makes it a lot easier.

Learner:

It was a great lesson but with a difference.