Defining Active Learning –– from Faculty Focus by Maryellen Weimer, PhD
Greenwood defines active learning as “The process of having students engage in some activity that forces them to reflect upon ideas and how they are using those ideas. Requiring students to regularly assess their own degree of understanding and skill at handling concepts or problems in a particular discipline. The attainment of knowledge by participating or contributing. The process of keeping students mentally, and often physically, active in their learning through activities that involve them in gathering information, thinking and problem solving.”
I’m not proposing this as the “right” “best” or “only” definition for active learning, but I am proposing that it’s a good deal more specific than most of us would offer. Now, if we sat down and thought about active learning, if we talked about it with colleagues, I’m pretty sure that the definitions we’d develop would rival this one. But my point is we can regularly use terms like this without having done that careful thinking.