Enhancing Engagement Through Active Learning Strategies

Students learn more when they are actively engaged than in a passive learning environment. Active teaching strategies increase students' attendance, engagement, and acquisition of expert attitudes toward college-level science courses. However, there is a sharp contrast between how students feel about their learning and how much they actually learn. The literature supports two explanations:

  1. Lecture-based teaching engages students cognitively to the point that they think they are learning more than they actually are.
  2. Novices in a subject are ill-equipped to gauge how much they are learning because of their poor metacognitive skills.
  3. Students who are unfamiliar with active learning may not appreciate that the cognitive struggle involved is actually a sign that learning is effective.

Students in the study experienced confusion and more cognitive effort during the small-group activities interspersed throughout lectures and interpreted this as a sign of poor learning. Students in an active learning environment also cited transitions from group activities to instructor feedback, concerns that errors made during class would not be corrected, and a general feeling of frustration and confusion when discussing concerns about actively taught classes.

The success of active learning depends on students' motivation and engagement, and students must be taught to self-regulate negative emotions as they struggle with new material or participate in group work with others.