Significant research indicates that engaging students in active learning fosters deeper learning (Entwistle, 2000; Fink, 2003; Prince, 2004). A key challenge, however, is designing active learning that effectively meets diverse student needs and supports mastery of the discipline. While many lists of useful methods are readily available, selecting, refining, and applying them in a way that helps students become autonomous and self-directed learners is an ongoing challenge.
This highly interactive workshop will address this challenge and explore practical strategies to create structured activities that engage students and foster deep learning. Through a series of sequenced exercises, participants will first distill principles and practices of effective structured learning activities and then work collaboratively to apply these to their own disciplines, while remaining mindful of expected challenges related to student motivation and ability, as well as class size, available resources, and other institutional constraints.
