Active Learning in the College Classroom.

The authors present a catalog of active-learning techniques aimed at fostering student learning in the context of a lecture course. The activities they discuss range from listening practices, which require students to absorb what they hear, to short writing exercises, in which students react to lecture material, to complex group exercises, in which students apply course material to “real life” situations and/or new problems. In addition to their review of active-learning techniques, the authors discuss some of the potential barriers to implementing active learning and suggest solutions. Finally, they add their own insights about how these techniques have worked—and not worked—in their classes. Because the authors represent both the natural sciences and the humanities, their success with these methods should be encouraging to faculty from different disciplines considering using active learning in their own courses.