One Step at a Time
Active Learning: we will take it one word at a time. Active indicates action, taking charge. Learning is the expansion of knowledge. With active learning, the objective of school -- learning -- is all the more intentional and students get to take charge. Who should know what they have learned better than them, the people in the seats and absorbing the information? As teachers, we have a hand in raising children since we see them every day for at least a year and influence them. With that privilege, we want to get them ready for their next step as they gain more freedom in life, and we help them with the responsibility from it. Part of growing up is learning to hold yourself accountable and take charge of what you need, which active learning helps with since students gain perspective on how much they actually know and what they can really do.
Action vs. Inaction
In the process of adjusting from teaching high school students to junior high students, I realize more and more how important movement is, even if it means moving to a different part of the room during class, because learning is anything but passive. It requires attention, energy, and dedication. It is the difference between hearing and listening. Even in the word "active," we must act. There must be action, doing something, for lack of a better term. The older we get, the better we are at knowing how to act in public, but that does not mean that sitting in on college lectures is helping us learn more than by putting together a skit just because the lectures are more present. Getting older does not mean that we enjoy games and excitement less, just that it is not as easy for us to get as excited. We are more contained and do not know how excited to get, until there is some edge sprinkled in, like that of competition, which brings us to tournaments.
Tournaments Add Edge.
Many millennials are scarred by this, so maybe more can remember sitting in math class back in elementary school and anticipating the adrenaline-inducing, anxiety-provoking, and ever frustrating Mad Minute. The objective is to answer as many of the simple (think single digit division, addition, multiplication, or subtraction) math problems as correctly and quickly as possible. When I was young, pre-adolescence, unapologetically enjoying games and getting excited about things, the Mad Minute looked like
this. Despite the excitement, I cannot think of anybody who misses it. It was thrill mixed with dread. Thankfully, there are less frightening ways to find out what we can accomplish in a minute,
such as the "minute paper" writing activity.
Tournaments (see #41), however, are supposed to put the fun back in learning, because why not have more fun, especially if it helps us learn better? While it tests how much students have learned, it is not exactly a test because the thrill is in the competition. With tournaments, such as
Trashketball, students can be more directly involved in their learning and taking accountability for all that they truly know. Students become enraptured trying to channel the knowledge that they have acquired for the sake of victory.
With Kahoot!, an online game platform for students to review content, teachers have the option of having students play in teams for more collaboration with the most points go to the team who answers correctly
and faster than everybody else. In class today, to review telling time, students got to choose their teams and collaborate on whether a question on the
slide deck of flash cards was true or false, or if it was logical or not. For example, to review different components of times of day vocabulary, I had displayed (in French), "Dismissal is at 3:10 in the morning" and students had to decide with their teams if that was logical or illogical. Junior high students still have enough energy to want to be first and raise their hand as quickly as possible to win, and do not care as much about what others think as high schoolers do.
Why Stop Having Fun?
As we get older, we play less. The psychology, human development, and parenting books all tell us about the importance of play, and tournaments are no exception. It is more planning on the teachers' part and must be catered to the audience (kindergarteners will not enjoy any certain game the same way college students would and vice versa), but our goal is for students to learn. What is worth more than that?
Hi Basically Blogging,
ReplyDeleteI resonated with your words- “Getting older does not mean that we enjoy games and excitement less”. I think that sometimes we forget that working can be fun, we just have to be creative enough to think of a way to make it fun. I cannot quote the study as I do not remember where I read it, however, I do once remember reading that adults and children were handed a paper clip and asked to think of all of the ways that it could be used. On average, most adults could only think of 3-5 ways, while children could think of 30+ ways each to use the clip. That being said, I am sure that if students were to take charge of more of their learning, they could think of multitudes of ways to take in the information rather than sitting and listening to a teacher ramble. Thank you for the great ideas/activities to use in my classroom, I am excited to try them out!
ReplyDeleteHi Basically Blogging! I thought you gave a really well explained exploration of active learning as a concept, describing it step by step, while also offering perspective on why elementary, middle grade and high school students may be hesitant to use some of these methods of learning based on prior educational experiences. I thought your post read as very informed, open-minded and empathetic, while describing the positive potential of active learning strategies. I also really liked your inclusion of the psychology of play, and your description of how different age groups play games differently and need to be accommodated in that way. I really enjoyed your post, Basically Blogging, it was very interesting and educational, great post!