Children learn by doing, thinking, exploring, through quality interaction, intervention and relationships, founded on children\u2019s interests and abilities across a variety of contexts. All combining to building the four capacities for each child.<\/p>\n Environments that offer differential play and challenge, staff who are well informed and able to challenge learning, child-centred and building on previous experiences, fun absolutely essential, children planning and evaluating their learning.<\/p>\n Education Scotland<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Whilst this is aimed at younger learners, it is true of learners and teaching at all levels. Involved, interesting and\u00a0possibly hilarious lessons are the ones that\u00a0pupils remember.<\/p>\n Apart from just being interesting and engaging, they are also incredibly useful for awkward topics. Take an area of content that is \u2018dry\u2019 and \u2018dull\u2019 and complex. One that many adults struggle to truly understand. There are\u00a0plenty of these that\u00a0pupils have to learn and that have to be taught. They can drive teachers crazy and bore classes senseless. They don\u2019t have to though. Through using active learning methods the learning can become accessible, understandable, fun and something that the class can relate to.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Two examples of how Active Learning can work: vote rigging, in the form of Gerrymandering, and the concept of hyperinflation. Quite\u00a0possibly two of the most uninspiring topics as far as your average teenager goes.<\/p>\n Gerrymandering, for those who don\u2019t know, was where electoral boundaries were moved to ensure that the outcome of elections was favourable to one group. It happened in Northern Ireland until not so long ago. Active learning here is quite simple but very effective. I relate the issue of voting to a school council. I ask simple questions along the lines of, \u2018there are x classes, how many representatives should there be on the council?\u2019 The pupils can relate to that. The answer is fairly obvious too. Then I relate it the class in front of me. \u2018I want six groups forming. What is the easiest and fairest way of doing this?\u2019 Now some\u00a0physical movement is introduced. I ask some\u00a0pupils to use a ball or string \/ wool to\u00a0physically mark out the boundaries of those groups on the floor. Of course this gets a little messy at times as there is usually a table or two that gets a bit tangled up. We discuss why the lines were\u00a0put there and then ask if there is any way of changing it to favour one\u00a0part of the class? The\u00a0pupils can then\u00a0physically move the string around to create six groups that are not equal. We can use it to give, for example, more groups of girls than boys, anything that illustrates a bias: ideally in favour of the minority! You can move\u00a0parts of the \u2018minority\u2019 group around the room to see what impact this has on the make up of groups too. Alongside actual data on the population of the areas affected by Gerrymandering, the\u00a0physical act of manipulating a body of\u00a0people, albeit just a class, makes the concept real and understandable. It shows how an electoral system can be manipulated for the benefit of a minority group. A full run through of this idea and the way it was originally conceived is\u00a0published on\u00a0thinkinghistory.co.uk<\/a>.<\/p>\n The second example I gave was hyperinflation. Again, I am using my history background but it\u2019s essentially a numbers issue that comes up across the curriculum in different forms.<\/p>\n Children struggle to grasp the true value of money. Even fairly grown up GCSE students find inflation hard to understand. They \u2018get\u2019 that a\u00a0price may go up from time to time but don\u2019t really have any experience of it being anything beyond reasonably small changes. To teach the concept of hyperinflation I get data from the relevant\u00a0period \u2013 in my case usually German hyperinflation from the early twenties \u2013 then device a real time activity for the class. I explain what hyperinflation is. I tell the class that they are going to race against inflation. I have a list of items that they can collect from a suitable\u00a0place in school. It includes things they will actually want and things that I say I have to have. They are told the current cost of these items. They are reminded about hyperinflation. They are told they can send a class representative to get as much as they want \u2013 so long as I get what I need \u2013 as soon as anybody completes a\u00a0puzzle accurately. Assuming that they have a sweet tooth it usually motivates the class to crack on with a\u00a0puzzle. I tend to use one that is actually decoding the rate at which money devalued. It\u2019s clearly linked and quite hard \u2013 though a maths teacher would\u00a0probably tell me otherwise! Anyway, they complete the task and off goes the\u00a0pupil to collect the goodies. Only, the\u00a0person they are going to has been given a minute by minute break down of what the actual devaluation would be. So if at the start of the lesson the class had enough for a lot of cake and chocolate, by the time they\u2019ve heard the explanation, worked through the\u00a0puzzle and walked to collect the goodies, they might only have enough to get what I actually said I needed. That\u00a0poses issues for the\u00a0pupil who has gone as the colleague will be\u00a0primed to get them to barter. It opens up questions to ask in class. It opens up opportunities to use images from the\u00a0period in which children are using\u00a0piles of bank notes as building blocks or of wages being carted home in a barrow. It makes it reasonably real, simply by simulating real life. Note: never actually require what you say what you must have. Most classes doing this exercise overrule you when given a \u2018pen or chocolate\u2019 scenario by your colleague: and yes, healthy lifestyles and all that, I know, but you get my\u00a0point. This exercise is outlined\u00a0in more detail here<\/a>.<\/p>\n There are many forms of active learning. They make use of space and involve\u00a0physical activity. Often quite different to \u2018normal\u2019 ways of doing something. It could be a sequencing task where instead of sorting cut out\u00a0pieces of\u00a0paper, they sort out a line of \u2018labelled\u2019\u00a0pupils. The opportunities are almost endless. They engage, allow for effective differentiation and work well alongside other methods. However, they can be very hard work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Teaching Tips:\u00a0Active Learning Active Learning is defined in different ways by different groups. At it\u2019s heart, Active Learning has \u2018doing\u2019 and not just \u2018doing\u2019 worksheets. It combines a range of techniques to have learners acting things out, investigating, role-playing or inquiring etc. Active Learning\u00a0is a hard teaching style to implement at times \u2013 it has… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-teaching-ideas"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t![\"Active](\"https:\/\/schoolshistory.org.uk\/topics\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/active-learning-success-300x200.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n