"Active learning" is a hot topic in higher education circles. Active learning refers to engaging students in classroom activities by using carefully selected interactive and collaborative teaching methodologies including planned discussions, Socratic dialogue, simulations, exercises, games, etc. Professors all over the country and in widely divergent academic disciplines are moving away from sole reliance on the lecture method of instruction and experimenting with other teaching methods. Various factors are driving the move to utilize teaching methods that will allow us to effectively "connect" with more of our students.
If you've been teaching for any length of time, you probably recognize that the students sitting in your class today are different, in very important ways, from the students occupying those seats even a decade or two ago. Just fifty years ago, pursuing a degree at a university was a privilege reserved for a small number of students. Because the "norm" then was not to attend college, those who did enroll in a given institution formed a relatively homogenous group in terms of desire and focus; a group that often responded well to the lecture/examination method of instruction. Prior to World War II, only five percent of the U.S. population held college degrees. Contrast that with the fact that today, fifty percent of the college-age population receives some post-secondary instruction.
Consider the following. Our classrooms are largely filled with a generation of students raised on television, video games, and MTV. A significant portion of our students report that they attend the university as a sort of rite-of-passage to professional employment rather than in pursuit of some educational ideal. Is it that surprising that engaging them using the lecture method doesn't always work very well? Experiencing student malaise in your class? Well, you're not alone.
As a student of Aristotle, I would harken back to his observation that the most successful communicators were those that worked equally hard to engage the hearts as well as their minds of their intended audience. Perhaps Aristotle's observation can help us to see that our present challenge is to do more than effectively organize and deliver our subset of "the material". Many professors are investing time and energy to determine if developing an active learning environment that encourages student interaction and collaborative learning may help to bridge the educational/motivational gap that we are facing with a number of our students.
There are rather obvious reasons why we need to encourage students to participate in class to help create an "active learning" environment. First, students, like most others, are apprehensive about speaking out in front of a group. Second, although I can't remember who said it, students subscribe to the generally accepted notion that, "it's better to keep your mouth shut and let the teacher and your classmates think you might be stupid, than to open your mouth and confirm their suspicions." Finally, since the predominant teaching method that students have been exposed to in school has been lecturing, they have probably learned that passive listening is an acceptable, if somewhat unproductive (at least for a subset of our students), learning strategy.
Creating an active learning environment is not inconsistent with the message in most books on college teaching that associate good teaching with 1) organization, 2) good rapport, 3) enthusiasm, 4) fairness, and 5) clarity. For, although "organization" and "clarity" might belong in the domain of "the material" surely "good rapport", "enthusiasm", and "fairness" belong in the affective domain. Experimenting with active learning techniques is not relegating the transmission of knowledge to the background of college teaching. Rather, it is an attempt to set the stage for more powerful learning by more fully engaging the learner in this vitally important educational enterprise.