A continuum of active learning

At the recent American Society for Engineering Education annual conference, a new engineering educator from the University of Pittsburgh referred to this diagram illustrating an active learning continuum. It comes from the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching at the University of Michigan. Using this diagram, he identified the simplest techniques– minute papers, think-pair-share, and muddiest point– since they required virtually no additional preparation on his part, just tweaking his current lecture notes. Even though there’s a large body of research supporting the effectiveness of these techniques, he wanted to make sure he could achieve those benefits in his class. So he compared active and non-active sections using students interviews, a classroom observation protocol, and comparison of final exam scores. Not surprisingly, all three measures showed significant benefits of these simple active learning techniques. See his paper for more details. Seems like an awesome way to demonstrate teaching effectiveness!