Abstract:
Increasingly encountered in college-level classes, active learning has been tested for many years in the context of higher education in the United States. The terms active learning and active teaching are defined in opposition to so-called "passive" or "traditional" teaching strategies like formal teaching. Active learning is often confused with the flipped classroom, problem-based learning, project-based learning, or discovery-based teaching methods. Active learning is actually broader in scope: it refers to a wide variety of teaching methods with the common goal of engaging students in a task and making them think about what they are doing.This article will explain how active teaching methods are proving particularly effective, and will shed light on the associated challenges and calculated risks to take to successfully introduce this process into the classroom. Several suggestions for activities and techniques in line with active teaching will also be presented, both for traditional and socio-technological environments.
