Motivating Active and Group Learning

1. Motivating Active and Group Learning Steve Wolfman University of Washington CCSC-NW 2002

2. Why Active and Group Learning? • Flagging attention [McConnell’s meds, Bligh’s heart rate/memory] • Critical/Higher-order thinking [Bloom’s Taxonomy] • Varied learning styles [Felder’s Learning Styles] • Constructivist knowledge building • “ZoPeDs” [Vygotsky’s Zones of Proximal Development] • Communicating ideas Steve Wolfman - UW

3. Why worry about motivation? • Help students understand why active and group learning • Get students to • Engage • Connect • Communicate • Interact Steve Wolfman - UW

4. Rules of Thumb for Motivation • Disclose your reasons • Diversify your exercises • Make engaging exercises • Design for groups Steve Wolfman - UW

5. Rule of Thumb #1:Disclose Tell students what you and they are doing and why; follow up! • first day shout • learning styles descriptions [Thomas et al.] • explaining group work/learning styles results [Deibel] • problems w/motivation w/out explicit follow-up Steve Wolfman - UW

6. Rule of Thumb #2:Diversify Embrace diversity in your problems, your students’ solutions, and in your students. • data structures problems [Deibel] • syntactic salt • “little sister” CAT [VanDeGrift] • prime words Steve Wolfman - UW

7. Rule of Thumb #3:Make engaging problems Create problems with intrinsic interest. • disequilibration [Reed] • Let’s Make a Deal, board problem • experimentation • Sort Detective [Levine] • real-world connection • execution time w/out loops, real clients in SE • group atmosphere • game shows, show-and-tell 1st part 2/3 of original 2nd part 4 + 1st Steve Wolfman - UW

8. Rule of Thumb #4:Design for groups Encourage “interdependence” in groups [Johnson&Johnson, Felder&Brent] • challenging problems • resource interdependence • Jigsaw Learning, Latent Jigsaw [Deibel] • variety of perspectives • gender/diversity issues Corollary: get to know your students! Steve Wolfman - UW

9. Bonus Rule of Thumb:Manage Expectations Steve Wolfman - UW

10. References • Jeffrey McConnell on Active Learning • Johnson and Johnson on Cooperative and Collaborative Learning • Dave Reed on disequilibration • David Levine on experimentation • Eric Roberts on engaging the group Steve Wolfman - UW