Top Active Learning Strategies to Boost Engagement and Success

Active learning strategies are based on the principle of learning by doing and deep understanding of educational material, asking questions and solving diverse problems, reaching generalizations and making decisions, and active learning positively affects students’ attitudes toward learning, enhances student self-confidence, and strengthens trust between teacher and students,

Therefore, in the current article, we have aimed to comprehensively review the most important active learning strategies, and how they can be successfully integrated into different educational environments, with a focus on addressing the concept of active learning and its most important benefits, and the role of both teacher and student in effectively implementing its strategies.

The Concept of Active Learning:

Active learning is ‘learning that simply involves engaging the learner directly and actively in the learning process itself, where it focuses on the learner performing in various activities carried out inside the classroom, and the learner’s work is not limited to receiving verbal and visual information, but rather receiving, participating, thinking, and innovating’.

Active learning is ‘learning that makes the student the focus of the educational process and makes them an active, dynamic, and participating individual, with a role in managing the educational process by determining some activities that suit their desires and capabilities’, and from the previous definitions, we can clarify the concept of active learning through the following:

1. The student is the focus of the educational process.
2. Active student participation through understanding the concepts and ideas presented to them during the teaching process.
3. The basic role of the classroom environment in the active learning process.
4. Exchanging experiences has a fundamental and important role in the teaching process and deepening the impact of learning inside and outside the classroom.
5. The role of the teacher in active learning is limited to guidance and counseling.

Definition of Active Learning Strategies:

Active learning strategies are ‘a learning method and a teaching method at the same time, students participate in their application through the activities, exercises, and projects monitored during the teaching of the educational guidance course, through a rich and diverse educational environment that allows them to engage in positive listening, constructive dialogue, and rich discussion’.

Principles and Fundamentals of Active Learning:

Active learning strategies are linked to a set of principles and fundamentals that include:

1. Active learning is linked to the student’s reality, needs, and interests.
2. Active learning occurs through the student’s interaction with the community.
3. Active learning is based on the student’s abilities and growth rate.
4. The student is placed at the center of the educational process.
5. Active learning occurs in all places (home, school, club), through deep thinking sessions in academic subjects.
6. Active learning increases the student’s awareness and perception of what they are learning through one of the active learning strategies.
7. It works to modify and increase the student’s cognitive structures and develop them through self-learning.
8. It provides immediate feedback to the student during active learning.

Characteristics of Active Learning:

Active learning is characterized by a set of features which are:

1. Focus on student responsibility and initiatives in acquiring learning and developing various skills.
2. Attention to active learning strategies, as well as thinking and reflecting on learning steps and metacognitive skills.
3. Attention to meaningful activities, assignments, and projects that focus on problem-solving, leading to valuable educational outcomes.
4. Considering the teacher as a facilitator, guide, and mentor for both knowledge and information, not a source of it, which requires many discussions between teachers and learners.
5. Focus on learning that relies on authentic, accurate, and relevant educational content connected to real-world scientific problems.
6. Reliance on reliable assessment strategies to judge real and practical skills.
7. Attention to cooperative learning as one type of active learning strategies.
8. The student’s knowledge construction in active learning is based on previous educational experiences and adding more of them in a spiral manner for deeper understanding.
9. Successful projects in active learning require referring to related projects and going outside the classroom to share or collaborate with others.
10. The presence of a positive fun aspect in active learning activities.
11. Focus on creativity and inspiration, encouraging innovative thinking in students, making them little researchers who connect causes and effects, interpret phenomena, and search for their reasons.
12. Attention to feedback derived from educational experiences.

Characteristics of Active Learning Environment:

The active learning environment must have a set of characteristics for the teacher to successfully apply active learning strategies, and these characteristics are as follows:

1. The learner should be active in connecting new knowledge to existing knowledge.
2. It promotes a spirit of cooperation, not competition in knowledge building under social negotiation.
3. Active learning creates an effective and appropriate educational atmosphere inside the classroom, providing many tools and methods used in the teaching and learning processes.
4. Examine all opinions and ideas as this is essential and of great value, where the learner collects these opinions and ideas and synthesizes them into a comprehensive whole.
5. The learner controls their learning process, including when negotiating with classmates inside the classroom.
6. Providing real learning environments connected to actual environmental problems for students to apply what they have learned.
7. Emphasis on building knowledge rather than repeating it.
8. Replacing traditional teaching steps with higher-order thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and problem-solving.
9. Assessment should be authentic and related to education, and it is essential to employ student self-assessment.

Most Important Active Learning Strategies in Classrooms:

Following active learning methods benefits both the teacher and the student equally. Here are a set of strategies that help in applying active learning:

1- Strategy (KWL):

It is an abbreviation for the letters taken from the following questions: (What I know?, What I want to learn, What I learned), and these words mean what do I know, what do I want to learn, what did I learn), and it is one of the metacognitive thinking strategies used in active learning and is implemented according to the following steps:

1. At the beginning of the class, students recall their prior knowledge about the lesson topic, which can be used to understand the topic presented, which is the answer to the first question (What do I know?).
2. In the second step, students determine what they want to learn by asking questions they want to find answers to by the end of the lecture. At this stage, the teacher should take whatever is necessary to stimulate students’ motivation to research the topic and determine what they want to learn about the study topic.
3. The third step requires students to evaluate what they have learned from the topic and the extent of their benefit from it at the end of the lesson.

2- More Clear or Complex Point Strategy:

In this strategy, the teacher guides students after finishing the explanation to write the clearest or most complex points, according to the following steps:

1. At the beginning of the lesson, the teacher tests students on a specific part of the book, which they may have specified in previous lectures.
2. After explaining an important point, the teacher stops for a moment, then asks students if they have clarifying questions, and it is preferable for the teacher to move among the students in the classroom to encourage them to ask questions.
3. To make students listen effectively, the teacher can ask one student to summarize another student’s answers.
4. To teach students to take notes effectively, stop after explaining an important point and ask students to exchange their notes and compare them to ensure their accuracy and clarity.

3- Brainstorming Sharing Strategy:

When using this strategy as one of the active learning strategies, the teacher should divide the classroom into teams and distribute each team a paper containing one question, for each group to answer the question, then pass the paper to a second team to answer the same question. After finishing passing the papers to all teams, each team receives the first paper and reads the answers of all teams, this helps spread knowledge among students and broaden their horizons, and to apply this strategy, the following must be followed:

1. A discussion leader is appointed for each lecture to help boost students’ self-confidence.
2. The teacher asks students to choose a specific part of the textbook and read it, which helps expand their knowledge and information.
3. Before starting the lecture, the teacher poses a general question related to the lesson and asks each student to write their opinion on a paper, and after finishing the lecture, the teacher asks students to share their opinions.

4- Inquiry-based Learning Strategy:

Inquiry-based learning is an educational approach that encourages learners to ask questions and explore answers independently, with the aim of enhancing their critical and analytical thinking skills. In this type of learning, learners move from the role of passive recipients to active participants, where they participate in discovering knowledge themselves through research and experimentation, and the steps of inquiry-based learning are as follows:

1. Inquiry-based learning begins with posing a question or identifying a problem that requires deep exploration. The teacher can suggest the question or encourage learners to choose a topic that arouses their curiosity.
2. After identifying the question, learners begin to collect information and data from various sources, whether through written research, interviews, or even practical experiments.
3. Learners make hypotheses about the possible answer to the question or possible solutions to the problem, which enhances critical thinking skills and predicting outcomes.
4. Learners design experiments or activities to test their hypotheses. In this stage, they learn how to test ideas in a scientific manner.
5. After collecting data from experiments, learners analyze and interpret the results to determine whether they support their hypotheses or not, and identify ideas that can be built upon later.
6. Learners share their conclusions and observations with others through presentations or reports, which helps them develop communication skills.

5- Cooperative Learning Strategy:

Cooperative learning is an educational approach that relies on group work within small groups, where students collaborate with each other to achieve common educational goals. This strategy aims to develop students’ social and communication skills, enhance deep understanding of the material, through continuous interaction and exchange of ideas. The cooperative learning strategy goes through a series of steps:

1. Cooperative learning begins with clearly defining educational objectives that are understandable to all students. Objectives may include understanding certain concepts, solving a problem, or completing a project.
2. Students are divided into small groups of 3-5 individuals, taking into account diversity in levels and roles. This diversity helps enhance the exchange of experiences and acquisition of new skills.
3. Each student is assigned a specific role (such as leader, recorder, researcher, observer) to stimulate individual responsibility and balance roles.
4. The teacher guides the groups on how to handle the task, provides guidance on the best ways to communicate and collaborate. The teacher also sets a timeline and establishes performance criteria to evaluate group work.
5. Students collaborate in analyzing information, solving problems, and exchanging ideas. They are encouraged to actively participate in dialogue and discussion within the group, which enhances their understanding of the topic.
6. The teacher monitors the progress of the groups and provides feedback and observations. Assessment may include individual and group observations to encourage students to improve their performance.
7. After completing the tasks, each group presents its results to the class, which boosts their self-confidence and allows everyone to benefit from the experiences of others.

The Teacher’s Role in Implementing Active Learning Strategies:

The teacher’s role in implementing active learning is reflected in the following points:

1. The teacher is the facilitator, motivator, encourager, guide, and mentor for active learning processes.
2. The teacher organizes learning and accepts ideas from all students.
3. The teacher creates a safe classroom environment that helps students ask all their questions by fostering an atmosphere of reassurance and enjoyment during learning.
4. The teacher designs learning activities that motivate students to explore and discover.
5. The teacher guides students toward the goal and manages the educational situation in an intelligent way.
6. The teacher has skills related to asking questions, managing discussions, and designing exciting and engaging educational situations.
7. The teacher clarifies expectations and continuously emphasizes the importance of implementing active learning strategies.

The Learner’s Role in Implementing Active Learning Strategies:

Based on the focus of active learning on learner positivity and participation, the learner’s role in the active educational situation can be determined as follows:

1. The learner initiates activities of their own making and takes responsibility for their learning; the active learner engages in activities with interest because they are doing what they want to do.
2. The active learner takes responsibility for decision-making and seeks multiple ways to solve the problems they face.
3. The active learner feels in control of the information and possesses it in the sense that it becomes part of their knowledge structure.
4. The active learner controls the learning process, acts with self-motivation, and learns what they want to learn.
5. The active learner organizes themselves and others in their group, as the active learner knows both individual and collective responsibilities.
6. The active learner understands the importance of time and organizes their time according to work requirements and completes their tasks within their predetermined deadlines.
7. The active learner can choose the appropriate means to present their knowledge and write a suitable report about their progress in their work.
8. The active learner is also an influential learner who can identify their strengths and weaknesses, and is prepared to discuss strengths and weaknesses with their peers cooperatively, building away from belittling others’ achievements.
9. The active learner trusts themselves and their abilities, and is enthusiastic about their work, as success leads to self-confidence, and self-confidence leads to feeling comfortable and eager to discover the unknown, thereby increasing motivation to learn.

Obstacles to Implementing Active Learning Strategies in the Classroom:

Obstacles to implementing active learning strategies revolve around several important matters, including:

1. The teacher’s understanding of the nature of their work and roles, and the discomfort and anxiety resulting from the required change, and the lack of incentives required for change.
2. The limited time of class periods and the large number of classes assigned to the teacher weekly.
3. It takes a long time in planning and preparation.
4. The increase in the number of students in classes, which hinders the implementation of active learning situations.
5. The lack of availability of materials, equipment, and learning resources required to implement active learning.
6. Teachers’ fear of trying anything new.
7. Fear of students not participating and not using higher-order thinking skills.
8. Fear of controlling students.
9. Fear of others criticizing breaking the familiar in education.
10. The unsuitability of the classroom environment for using some active learning strategies.
11. The many administrative responsibilities assigned to the teacher.

Conclusion:

Through our review of this topic, we find that active learning strategies represent a fundamental pillar for the future of education. They not only enhance interaction, but also contribute to developing critical thinking skills and enhancing deep understanding, therefore we call on teachers, students, and researchers to try and apply these strategies in their various educational environments, to explore new possibilities for improving the educational process.

References:

Ramadan, Mona. (2016).Active Learning Strategies. Al-Akademiyoun Publishing and Distribution Company.

Abu Al-Haj, Saha, and Al-Musalaha, Hassan. (2016).Active Learning Strategies: Activities and Practical Applications. De Bono Center for Thinking Education.

Related Articles:

1. 1. Station-Based Learning Strategy
   2. Inductive Teaching Strategy
   3. Active Learning Strategies
   4. Brainstorming Strategy
   5. Mind Maps

Conclusion:

Through our review of this topic, we find that active learning strategies represent a fundamental pillar for the future of education. They not only enhance interaction but also contribute to the development of critical thinking skills and deep understanding. Therefore, we call upon teachers, students, and researchers to experiment with and apply these strategies in their various educational environments to explore new possibilities for improving the educational process.