1) Brian Rybarczyk gives a presentation on active learning techniques to incorporate more student engagement and participation into classroom teaching. 2) Active learning involves students solving problems, answering questions, and participating in activities during class rather than just lecturing. It has been shown to significantly increase information retention compared to traditional lecturing. 3) Examples of active learning techniques discussed include think-pair-share, role playing, group quizzing, case studies, and assigning primary literature for student groups to analyze. The goals are to make the classroom experience more exciting and promote higher-level thinking.

1. Brian Rybarczyk, Ph.D.
UNC Chapel Hill
Department of Biology
Energizing the Classroom
Introduction to
Active Learning

2. Objectives
• Introduce concept of active learning
• Demonstrate techniques & activities
• Incorporate active learning into your
future teaching

3. da Vinci and the Renaissance
Embodies essence of the
Renaissance
‘Rebirth’ of learning
Thinking outside the box
Ideas
Discovery
Experiment
Change is good

4. Brainstorm Activity
Write down ways that your professors
taught you
Effective methods
Ineffective methods

5. Brainstorm Activity II
What are some ways you learn best now
as a scientist?

6. What is Active Learning?
Time of class (min)
10 20 30 40 60
%
Retained
50
100
50
0
lecture
active learning
From: McKeachie, Teaching tips: Strategies, research and theory for
for college and university teachers, Houghton-Mifflin (1998)

7. What is Active Learning?

8. What is Active Learning?
students solve problems, answer questions,
formulate questions of their own, discuss,
explain, debate, or brainstorm during class
Active Learning
Problem-
Based
Learning
Cooperative
Learning
Learn By Doing
Inquiry-based
learning

9. What is the purpose?
• Increase student participation
• Increase student engagement
• Increase student retention
• More student ownership in course
• Less lecturing by instructor
• More exciting classroom experience
• Higher level thinking

10. Improving Lectures
• Plan objectives
• Include graphics, charts, graphs, etc
• Plan what you want to annotate
• Learn students’ names
• Cue important points
• Give short activities
• Give students time to generate questions
• Have students summarize major points

11. Examples of Active Learning
• Dr. Robert Beichner – NCSU
– SCALE-UP – researching effectiveness of
active learning in physics and chemistry
– http://scaleup.ncsu.edu/
– Example of SCALE-UP Activity

12. Active Techniques
• Think-pair-share (pair-share)
• Role playing, simulations
• Muddiest point/clearest point
• Group quizzing
• Generate lists
• Cooperative learning
• Minute papers and writing assignments
• PBL and case studies
• Concept maps

14. Reading Primary Literature
• Provide one figure/table to each student
group
• Propose a title for the paper
• Delete abstract and have students write a
summary

15. Case Studies

16. Case Studies

17. Concerns & Issues
What are your concerns
about using active
learning activities &
techniques?

18. Suggestions
• Describe to the students what is
happening and why
• State expectations
• Incorporate assessments with activities
• Start off simple (low risk)
• Ask questions, walk around classroom, be
attentive to student questions
• Have students rely on each other

19. Resources
National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science (case
study collection):
http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/cases/case.html
Problem Based Learning (U of Delaware):
http://www.udel.edu/pbl/
MERLOT – (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and
Online Teaching
http://www.merlot.org
Journals of Interest:
Innovate: www.innovateonline.info/index.php
CBE Life Science Education – www.lifescied.org/
Journal of College Science Teaching – www.nsta.org
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education –
www.bambed.org

20. Brian Rybarczyk, Ph.D.
brybar@unc.edu