5 Ways to Boost Active Learning with Catalyst
Have you ever taught a great lecture, only to find out on test day that your students missed the point? It happens to the best of us. When students just memorize content, they often forget it quickly. Research shows that active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics (Freeman et al., 2014).
The goal of active learning is to help students engage with the material through collaboration and discussion. This leads to deeper learning that sticks.
At Catalyst Education, we know how important this is. But how do you actually do it?
1. Design Around Your Difficult Topics
To make active learning work, start by considering your key learning outcomes. Design your activities specifically around the topics students find most difficult to master. Engaging students in practice on these challenging topics makes the learning process more transparent to both students and instructors and focuses students' classroom or lab time on the concepts that they need the most scaffolding for.
2. Customize Content to Fit Your Classroom
You can seamlessly integrate our partner Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) activities or interactive PhET simulation activities to give students scaffolded learning experiences. Because the Catalyst platform is highly customizable, you can even add your own guided inquiry lessons, case studies, and problem-based studies with real-world examples. Worried about how to translate them to digital learning? No problem, we can help!
3. Harness the Power of Timely Feedback
One of the biggest benefits of active learning is that instructors gain insight into student thinking in real time. When students are actively engaging with the content and each other, educators can hear in real time which ideas are sticking and what misconceptions may pop up - you don't have to wait for test days anymore.
Additionally, the power of instant feedback goes both ways. When students, in turn, get frequent and timely feedback, they can identify and reconcile those misconceptions early. The quiz, homework, and reports features in the Catalyst platform help you provide detailed feedback to students instantly.
4. Build Community Through Group Practice
Activities like think-pair-share, where students think about how to solve a problem individually and then discuss their thought process with a peer, do more than just get students talking. They allow students to build community with each other. Students who might hesitate to ask an instructor directly can gain quick clarification from a peer in a low-pressure setting.
5. Make Room in the Lecture
It is important to diversify strategies to meet all student needs by letting them solve problems, practice skills, and make decisions. Make room for these activities directly in your lecture time. A great way to do this is by adding low-stakes pre-lecture assignments that generate automated feedback, ensuring students arrive prepared to discuss and collaborate. Whether you use Labflow or Spark, Catalyst makes it easy to bring these methods to life.
Want to learn more about ways you can add customized, active learning opportunities to your Catalyst-supported course? Reach out to your Faculty Success Manager (FSM) and schedule a chat today!