Blog #4 Active Learning and 21st Century Students

Photo Courtesy of S. Feeman Padlet Presentation

This week's blog gave me the opportunity to discover a different way to engage the students in my classroom. We learned all about active learning and what it looks like in a real 21st century environment. Active learning is student led, teacher facilitated, builds on communication/collaboration/critical thinking skills, and allows students to create things they learn. My professor shared with us different activities that she has done with students in different classrooms. I read about an activity she did using QR codes. She had students in her class use QR codes to decode different famous quotes for an African American history project. Students traveled around the classroom reading beautiful and famous quotes and then used the QR code to figure out the missing word. Then she flipped the script on the kids and had them create their own QR code mystery quote. Students worked collaboratively to find a quote and then shared them with their fellow classmates. This whole project just SCREAMED active learning. Students worked collaboratively, and the entire lesson was student led while the teacher facilitated their exploration. Then, they created their own model representation and taught each other. I loved it! I have never used QR codes in my classroom but after reading about this activity, the wheels started turning in my head and I just want to jump and start using them.

A question was posed to me about active learning. They asked if active learning should be kept in mind when developing lessons. I answer that question with an honest YES. I believe that the students in a 21st century classroom learn differently then we did as kids. We grew up in classrooms where teachers stood in the front of the classroom and lectured about a lesson. We as diligent students took notes, praying that what we wrote down was the important information, then took our notes home and crammed all of it into our brains for a summative test. This cycle repeated for me all through my education. I didn't remember those lessons, and I continually had to reteach myself the material. You know what lessons I did learn? I remembered every lesson that my 7th grade Social Studies teacher taught me. Everything was hands on, he would often give us these big projects and the tools to problem solve it. We worked collaboratively and explored the world around us. Looking back, I realize now that it was because he made us active learners. He taught us to think critically and use our classmates to solve problems instead of relying on him to always solve our problems for us.

So should active learning be thought about when developing lessons? Yes. Should it be our primary focus every time we teach kids? Without question. It may be a difficult task at first to find ways for students to take the lead, especially in 3rd grade, but I think it is worth it if they remember the material long down the road when they are adults working with peers to solve problems and learn new material through their careers.

Check out this article about Active Learning for more information!
htActive Learning-Vanderbilt University