What is active learning

The main principle of 'active learning' is that We learn by doing. Research shows that active learning is much better recalled, enjoyed and understood. Active methods require us to 'make our own meaning', that is, develop our own conceptualisations of what we are learning. During this process we physically make neural connections in our brain, the process we call learning. Passive methods such as listening do not require us to make these neural connections or conceptualisations.

So active learning means using an approach that involves e-learners in doing something for their learning. It means involving learners in learning activities that are 'authentic to the work and social contexts in which the skills or knowledge are normally embedded ... related to real-world tasks and situations'. Learners may be involved in researching information; they are expected to engage in 'processing' that information, with support and direction from the teacher, and often in collaboration with others, to create meaning that is personally relevant to them. In other words, active learners do not passively receive information from others, as empty vessels that simply receive what others 'pour' into them. Instead, the learners have a central role in a 'unified process where teachers and students have important, complementary responsibilities'.

This shift in learner and teacher roles means that the tutor is more likely to facilitate the approaches to learning selected by individual learners but this does not mean that the role of the tutor is marginalized. The effective active learning experience involves a partnership process. The teacher continues to have an important role in identifying relevant and appropriate learning outcomes (setting the overall curriculum), in designing experiences and activities that will engage learners in the experience and critical reflection in order to make sense of what they learn, in managing the process of activity (e.g. setting time parameters) and in assessing the achievement of learning outcomes. However, while maintaining an overall role as a 'teaching presence' within an active learning approach, the teacher may share this role with the learners as students are encouraged and enabled to 'become self-directed and to manage and monitor their own learning appropriate to the task and their ability.