While Active Learning Classrooms, or ALCs, offer rich new environments for learning, they present many new challenges to faculty because, among other things, they eliminate the room’s central focal point and disrupt the conventional seating plan to which faculty and students have become accustomed.The importance of learning how to use these classrooms well and to capitalize on their special features is paramount. The potential they represent can be realized only when they facilitate improved learning outcomes and engage students in the learning process in a manner different from traditional classrooms and lecture halls.This book provides an introduction to ALCs, briefly covering their history and then synthesizing the research on these spaces to provide faculty with empirically based, practical guidance on how to use these unfamiliar spaces effectively. Among the questions this book addresses are:• How can instructors mitigate the apparent lack of a central focal point in the space?• What types of learning activities work well in the ALCs and take advantage of the affordances of the room?• How can teachers address familiar classroom-management challenges in these unfamiliar spaces?• If assessment and rapid feedback are critical in active learning, how do they work in a room filled with circular tables and no central focus point?• How do instructors balance group learning with the needs of the larger class?• How can students be held accountable when many will necessarily have their backs facing the instructor?• How can instructors evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching in these spaces?This book is intended for faculty preparing to teach in or already working in this new classroom environment; for administrators planning to create ALCs or experimenting with provisionally designed rooms; and for faculty developers helping teachers transition to using these new spaces.

El espacio, ya sea físico o virtual, puede tener un impacto significativo en el aprendizaje. Learning Spaces se centra en la forma en que las expectativas de los alumnos influyen en dichos espacios, en los principios y actividades que facilitan el aprendizaje y en el papel de la tecnología desde la perspectiva de quienes crean los entornos de aprendizaje: profesores, tecnólogos del aprendizaje, bibliotecarios y administradores. La tecnología de la información ha aportado capacidades únicas a los espacios de aprendizaje, ya sea estimulando una mayor interacción mediante el uso de herramientas de colaboración, videoconferencias con expertos internacionales o abriendo mundos virtuales para la exploración. Este libro representa una exploración continua a medida que unimos el espacio, la tecnología y la pedagogía para asegurar el éxito de los estudiantes.

Dee Fink poses a fundamental question for all teachers: "How can I create courses that will provide significant learning experiences for my students?" In the process of addressing this question, he urges teachers to shift from a content-centered approach to a learning-centered approach that asks "What kinds of learning will be significant for students, and how can I create a course that will result in that kind of learning?" Fink provides several conceptual and procedural tools that will be invaluable for all teachers when designing instruction. He takes important existing ideas in the literature on college teaching (active learning, educative assessment), adds some new ideas (a taxonomy of significant learning, the concept of a teaching strategy), and shows how to systematically combine these in a way that results in powerful learning experiences for students. Acquiring a deeper understanding of the design process will empower teachers to creatively design courses for significant learning in a variety of situations.

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.

For decades, if not more, the pedagogy of choice for higher education was the lecture: students sat quietly in a large classroom, stared at the teacher while the teacher lectured about a subject some students knew nothing about. Students were discouraged from talking to fellow classmates and teachers, but were encouraged to take notes. However, with new technologies, including including computers, the internet, cell phones, smart devices, and social media, pedagogy has changed drastically. Students are now asked to multitask (listen, watch, read) not just take notes on the lecture. These changes require effective teaching pedagogy that engages multiple human technologies--speaking, hearing, responding, interacting, organizing, among others--a pedagogy that is called active learning. Faculty Experiences in Active Learning, a book authored by twenty-four faculty and administrators, works to ignite a culture of active learning in higher education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. UNC Charlotte has been working to become a national leader in active learning transformation since 2014. The University promotes the use of active learning pedagogy through a faculty community of practice called the Active Learning Academy and provides supporting spaces for active learning through construction and renovations of classrooms to be active learning centers. This book, authored by Active Learning Academy members, was written for higher education faculty and students planning to teach at the post-secondary level and is a guide for considering the diverse pathways that active learning can take based on student population, approach, discipline, and learning environment. The chapters in this book cover a range of topics on active learning: implementing logistics and strategies for getting started with active learning methods, using flipped classroom models, evaluating student engagement, addressing accessibility in active learning classrooms, and experimenting with adaptive academic technologies. Design patterns for planning active learning engagement in your classroom are provided along with examples of pitfalls that can occur with each activity and best practices for using activities successfully.

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

What is understanding and how does it differ from knowledge? How can we determine the big ideas worth understanding? Why is understanding an important teaching goal, and how do we know when students have attained it? How can we create a rigorous and engaging curriculum that focuses on understanding and leads to improved student performance in today's high-stakes, standards-based environment? Authors Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe answer these and many other questions in this second edition of Understanding by Design. Drawing on feedback from thousands of educators around the world who have used the UbD framework since its introduction in 1998, the authors have greatly revised and expanded their original work to guide educators across the K-16 spectrum in the design of curriculum, assessment, and instruction. With an improved UbD Template at its core, the book explains the rationale of backward design and explores in greater depth the meaning of such key ideas as essential questions and transfer tasks. Readers will learn why the familiar coverage- and activity-based approaches to curriculum design fall short, and how a focus on the six facets of understanding can enrich student learning. With an expanded array of practical strategies, tools, and examples from all subject areas, the book demonstrates how the research-based principles of Understanding by Design apply to district frameworks as well as to individual units of curriculum. Combining provocative ideas, thoughtful analysis, and tested approaches, this new edition of Understanding by Design offers teacher-designers a clear path to the creation of curriculum that ensures better learning and a more stimulating experience for students and teachers alike.