How can we structure class time efficiently? How can we explain and lecture effectively? How can we help students master content? How can we make learning more real and lasting?In this revised and greatly expanded 2nd edition of Inspiring Active Learning, educators Merrill Harmin and Melanie Toth provide answers to our fundamental teaching questions and show us how to transform our classrooms into communities of active, responsible learners. The authors present an array of research-based, teacher-tested strategies for managing our everyday responsibilities--from beginning a class to grading homework, from instructing large groups to promoting diligent seatwork, from motivating slackers to handling disrupters. These strategies focus on mutual respect, not bossiness; collaboration, not isolation; commitment to learning, not fear of failure; and the dignity of all, not praise or rewards for a few.Regardless of our level of experience or the grade or subject we teach, the active-learning approach helps us* Perform routine teaching tasks more easily.* Discover a higher level of teaching success and personal satisfaction.* Establish a class climate of full participation and cooperation.* Prepare engaging lessons that keep students productively involved.* Encourage students to work energetically, willingly, and intelligently each day.* Inspire all students, even the most challenging, to strive for excellence.With its detailed classroom examples and more than 250 practical strategies, Inspiring Active Learning is a comprehensive reference for solving almost any teaching problem.

Strategies to help students become active, responsible learners.

This powerful collection will inspire new and veteran teachers to “make space” for children’s interests, for teaching as relational and intellectual work, and for new insights and ideas. The authors introduce the Prospect Center’s Descriptive Review of Practice, a collaborative inquiry process that provides an opportunity for teachers to examine their practice and gain new perspectives from other participants. The contributors to this volume respond to each child’s modes of thinking as they develop curriculum or find “wiggle room” in curricula they are given. By demonstrating how it is possible to pursue careful knowledge of craft, this book offers ways of teaching that allow for continuing growth and change. Book Features: An inquiry methodology that assists teachers to reflect on the classroom and develop curriculum that responds to children’s interests and needs. Specific examples of a variety of sources teachers can draw on and think about to improve practice. A method of data collection that can inform practice while allowing for the unevenness, messiness, and essential humanness of teaching and learning. “Making Space for Active Learning is a collection that stands alone and gets to the heart of what we mean by learning and teaching. Each contribution reminded me of how much I miss being in the classroom and how much we're missing in current so-called school reform discourse. Keep this book handy. A chapter at a time will restore some needed sanity about what's important.” —Deborah Meier, author and education activist “This book is a moving and powerful collection of teachers' work that holds the possibility of inspiring and changing new teachers' practice.” —Kathy Schultz, Dean and Professor, School of Education, Mills College “This book will add significantly to the expanding and important literature about The Prospect Processes which were developed over many years at the Prospect School and Center in Vermont. The chapters, all by experienced educators, profit from the back-and-forth between inquiry and stories of classroom life, each informing the other.” —Brenda S. Engel, associate professor, retired, Lesley University

This book focuses on selected best practices for effective active learning in Higher Education. Contributors present the epistemology of active learning along with specific case studies from different disciplines and countries. Discussing issues around ICTs, collaborative learning, experiential learning and other active learning strategies.

While many educators acknowledge the challenges of a curriculum shaped by test preparation, implementing meaningful new teaching strategies can be difficult. Active Learning presents an examination of innovative, interactive teaching strategies that were successful in engaging urban students who struggled with classroom learning. Drawing on rich ethnographic data, the book proposes participatory action research as a viable approach to teaching and learning that supports the development of multiple literacies in writing, reading, research and oral communication. As Wright argues, in connecting learning to authentic purposes and real world consequences, participatory action research can serve as a model for meaningful urban school reform. After an introduction to the history and demographics of the working-class West Coast neighborhood in which the described PAR project took place, the book discusses the "pedagogy of praxis" method and the project’s successful development of student voice, sociopolitical analysis capacities, leadership skills, empowerment and agency. Topics addressed include an analysis and discussion of the youth-driven PAR process, the reactions of student researchers, and the challenges for adults in maintaining youth and adult partnerships. A thought-provoking response to current educational challenges, Active Learning offers both timely implications for educational reform and recommendations to improve school policies and practices.

There is a need in the higher education arena for a book that responds to the need for using technology in a classroom of tech-savvy students. This book is filled with illustrative examples of questions and teaching activities that use classroom response systems from a variety of disciplines (with a discipline index). The book also incorporates results from research on the effectiveness of the technology for teaching. Written for instructional designers and re-designers as well as faculty across disciplines. A must-read for anyone interested in interactive teaching and the use of clickers. This book draws on the experiences of countless instructors across a wide range of disciplines to provide both novice and experienced teachers with practical advice on how to make classes more fun and more effective.”--Eric Mazur, Balkanski Professor of Physics and Applied Physics, Harvard University, and author, Peer Instruction: A User’s Manual “Those who come to this book needing practical advice on using ‘clickers’ in the classroom will be richly rewarded: with case studies, a refreshing historical perspective, and much pedagogical ingenuity. Those who seek a deep, thoughtful examination of strategies for active learning will find that here as well—in abundance. Dr. Bruff achieves a marvelous synthesis of the pragmatic and the philosophical that will be useful far beyond the life span of any single technology.” --Gardner Campbell, Director, Academy for Teaching and Learning, and Associate Professor of Literature, Media, and Learning, Honors College, Baylor University