# Question 3: How Can We Make Learning More Active?

# Commentary

All the Key Resources are relevant to this question, but see particularly 3, 4, 7 and 11.

There is now nearly universal acceptance that learning must be an active rather than a passive process. We all learn best when we have to articulate ideas or work with other people on tasks. No SBTD programme should be carried out in silence!

There have been significant pedagogic changes in all areas of the curriculum in terms of active approaches to learning. For example, in language teaching, there is now a much greater focus on developing “communicative” skills that involve far more interaction between you and the students, and between the students themselves. The contemporary teaching of Mathematics and Science gives increased emphasis to investigations and problem solving in order to develop students’ understanding and ways of thinking and acting scientifically. Similarly, topics such as climate change and globalisation have gained more importance across the curriculum and require the development of new pedagogic strategies.

Using different ways of working in the classroom will support these changes and will help students gain a deeper understanding of the subjects, topics and related issues. To reflect this, we have seen a change of emphasis towards children and young people being more actively engaged — both physically and mentally — in their learning. This has been driven by developments in our understanding of the way the brain functions in the learning process. The old idea about each of us having a fixed intelligence has been discarded. It is now thought that we are not born with one predetermined intelligence, but given the right conditions — and school is an important condition — we are all capable of learning a great deal more than was previously thought possible.

The importance of this “active” learning, which includes students carrying out investigations, problem solving, and asking and answering their own questions, has come increasingly to the fore in recent years. Children and young people become more effective learners when they talk about ideas and engage co-operatively with others to carry out tasks. However, if there are a large number of students in a small classroom, some people may think that more passive approaches, such as students sitting quietly in rows listening to the teacher, appear to have advantages. Some students will, in fact, progress under this approach, but many others will not. The evidence suggests that it is possible, even with large classes, to develop more active approaches to learning. As a result, children’s achievements in school improve, but these approaches also provide a good foundation for learning later in life. Most jobs in the future will require people to be flexible, capable of learning “on the job” and able to apply new knowledge quickly and effectively. Just think about the changes in communication technologies over the last two decades and how you have had to respond. This sort of adaptability will be needed in most jobs, and schools have an important responsibility to ensure all children and young people will have the necessary capabilities. Although these are not necessarily new ideas, they have not always been fully recognised in many schools and education systems.

By carrying out the activity 3, we want you to develop awareness of the links between active pedagogic strategies and improved student learning.

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike License 4.0