Why is Active Learning Important?
Active learning helps to overcome attention problems. Also, Delivee Wright of the Teaching and Learning Center at University of Nebraska—Lincoln says that support for active learning depends on two basic assumptions: • that learning is by nature an active endeavor, and • that different people learn in different ways. On the basis of these assumptions, it follows that: …first, students learn best when applying subject matter—in other words, learning by doing—and, second, that teachers who rely exclusively on any one instructional approach often fail to get through to significant numbers of students. As a result, both teachers and students end up dissatisfied. By increasing active learning strategies in our teaching, we increase the odds that students will leave our classrooms with more than a notebook full of “facts.” Research does demonstrate that when we use information (for example, rehearse it or solve problems with it), we are more likely to retain it (Bransford, 1979). And when we
