Interactive teaching methods double learning!

ScienceDaily (May 12, 2011) — Interactive teaching methods significantly improved attendance and doubled both engagement and learning in a large physics class, according to a University of British Columbia study published May 12 in Science.

During the experimentat students were guided through a series of activities that had previously been shown to enhance learning, such as paired and small-group discussions and active learning tasks, which included the use of remote-control “clickers” to provide feedback for in-class questions. Pre-class reading assignments and quizzes were also given to ensure students were prepared to discuss course material upon arrival in class.

“These activities require more work from the students, but the students report that they feel they are learning more and are more vested in their own learning,” says co-author Schelew. Tips from Larry Ferlazzo’s website of the day.

These findings confirm my belief in Cooperative learning and how great it is to cobine Cooperataive learning with the use of computers in class. It is important to activly engages students especially in a 1:1 enverionment such as ours.  Johnson and Johnson have made a great and matchless contribution in the field of cooperative learning. Both brothers were in Norway in 2004 and had a great workshop for teachers in Akershus.

The most basic elements or pillars of cooperative learning are: individual accountability, positive interdependence, face-to-face promotive interaction, Group processing, and Interpersonal and Small group skills. Read more about Johnson and Johnson’s work here. Others who do cooperative learning are amongst others Kagan. You can find material here.  I have written about cooperative learning in a previous post too.“Students work on projects or problems in teams with both personal and team accountability for conceptual understanding” (Learning Technologies at Virginia Tech, 2009). More here.