1.

1 Identify your personal aims  45 minutes

1.2 What is active learning?  60 minutes

1.3 How can active learning benefit my learners?  60 minutes

1.4 Reflection

Week 1

1.1 Identify your personal aims

 45 minutes

This week we will explore the following questions:

 What do I want to get out of this course?

 What is active learning?
 How does active learning relate to my practice?
Reflection is key to relating knowledge to your own experience. Each week you will be asked questions to help you reflect on what you have learnt
and how it relates to your own teaching practice. 

Let’s start off by thinking about the following question:

What do I want to get out of this course?

 
A KWL chart is an effective technique to help you to identify your personal goals and track your progress through the course. A KWL chart is used to:

 identify what you already Know

 consider what you Want to know
 Record what you have Learned.

 ‘KWL charts are useful at the start of a lesson to activate and consolidate what has already been learned, but can also be used as an
Assessment for Learning strategy in the middle of a lesson as students monitor their learning and progress.
 When using a KWL chart, the most important principle is that students can reflect on what they know (K) and what they want to learn (W),
which could include revision of partially forgotten material. Later, either as the lesson progresses or at the end of the lesson by way of a
plenary, they record what they have learned (L). Completing the L column consolidates the new knowledge and understanding and
evidences progress. Some groups benefit from including an additional ‘F’ column for Finding Further information and an ‘H’ column for How
To Find this information.’

Approaches to Learning and Teaching in Global Perspectives: A Toolkit for International Teachers, Keely Laycock, Cambridge University Press,
September 2017.
In this course you are going to post your KWL chart into your journal.  Here is an example of a personal KWL chart: 
At the end of every week, you will be updating your KWL chart to review the work you have done
and to start thinking about the next week's topics.

At the end of the course you will have the opportunity to reflect on how your needs have been
met and the impact the course will have on your teaching.

You can structure your thoughts in your own way. For example, you could use one KWL chart for
the whole course, or start a new one each week.

  Start your KWL chart in your journal by making some notes on the first two questions:

 What do I Know about active learning?

 What do I Want to know about active learning?

1.2 What is active learning?

 60 minutes

  Read the following four sections in the Getting Started with Active Learning resource:

 What is active learning?

 What is the research behind active learning?
 What are the benefits of active learning?
 Seven misconceptions about active learning.

You may find it helpful to bookmark this webpage, as it is the main resource for the course.

  As teachers, we are often asked to explain what goes on in the classroom to different
types of people.

1. On your own, think about how you would explain active learning to these different
people: 
o a colleague in your school
o a parent
o a student. 
 2. Share your ideas with your group in the 1.2 explaining active
learning discussion. Note: you can find full technical instructions on how to do this in
the course handbook . 

3. Review your colleagues’ suggestions.

o Is there anything that you find unclear? – Ask them.
o Do you have any suggestions or advice? – Tell them.

4. Update your explanations based on your colleagues' feedback, and share your
explanations with the class on the 1.2 explaining active learning wall . Note: you can
find full technical instructions on how to do this in the course handbook . 

Week 1

1.3 How can active learning benefit my learners?

 60 minutes

  In the previous lesson you read about and watched the interviews with teachers on
the benefits of active learning. 

Now you are going think about how active learning will benefit your learners.

1. Make some notes in answer to the following questions:

o What do you think is the most important benefit mentioned in the Getting
Started with Active Learning resource for your learners?
o Explain why this would be the most important benefit.
o What other possible benefits might there be?

2. Share your notes with your group in the 1.3 Benefits of active

learning  discussion. Note: you can find full technical instructions on how to do this in
the course handbook . 

3. Review your colleagues' notes.

o Do they mention any benefits that you had not thought of? – Tell them.
o Is there anything that is unclear to you? – Ask them.

4. Update your notes based on your colleagues' feedback, and share your thoughts on the
benefits of AFL with the class on the 1.3 Benefits of AFL wall.

 
 

Week 1

1.4 Reflection
 45 minutes

  Looking back 

Look back at the notes you made in your journal at the start of the week:

 What can you add in the ‘Learned’ section?

 Is there anything in the ‘Want to know’ section that was not answered this week or you
are not clear about? 
 Do you have anything new to add to the ‘Want to know section’?

Post your questions in the whole class 1.4 Reflection discussions.

  Looking forwards 

In Week 2, we are going to explore what active learning looks like in the classroom. 

In order to plan your time, take a few minutes to read through next week's lessons. If you think
you are going to have any difficulties keeping to the schedule, please contact me in the Course
café.

Take a few minutes to think about next week then make some notes in your journal in the ‘Want
to know’ section.

Week 2
 

 3 hours 45 minutes

This week we will explore the following

questions:   Completion criteria: 
 o Share an activity that you
currently do in class that applies
 Where do I currently apply active
active learning.
learning in my practice?
o Describe how you will adapt
 What does effective active learning
an active learning technique to use
look like?
with your learners and review your
colleagues' ideas.

We recommend that you access the course every day to check your messages and keep up
any discussions. To help you manage your time, here is a suggested guideline of when to
carry out the activities of the week.

2.1 Active learning in

 30 minutes
practice

2.2 Review your own

 60 minutes
practice

2.3 Active learning

 90 minutes
techniques

2.4 Reflection  45 minutes

Week 2

2.1 Active learning in practice

 30 minutes
   Read the following section in the Getting Started with Active Learning resource:

 Active learning in practice.

 

If you have any questions or difficulties, please come and post them in the Course café.

Week 2

2.2 Review your own practice

 60 minutes

  Think about your own teaching and identify something you do in class that applies active
learning. 

You can use the Checklist section of Getting Started with Active Learning to guide you. 

1. Write a description of the activity that includes:

o what the learners do
o what you do
o how the activity applies active learning.

2. Share your description on with your group in the 2.2 My practice discussion .

3. Have a look at your colleagues’ examples.

o Is there anything that is unclear? – Ask them.
o Are there any descriptions that you recognise from your own teaching? – Tell
them.
o Are there any examples that you would like to try with your learners? – Tell
them.

4. Update your description using your colleagues’ feedback and share it on the 2.2 My
practice wall .

Week 2

2.3 Active learning techniques

  90 minutes

  Below are descriptions of some some active learning techniques that you can use in the
classroom. 
 1. Read all of the descriptions carefully. 

2. Choose one technique that you could apply to a subject you teach. 

  You are going to share your choice with the class.

1. Make some notes explaining:

o what technique you chose

o why you chose the technique
o how you will adapt the technique to use with your learners.

 2. Share the name of the technique and your notes on the 2.3 Adapt a technique wall. 
 3. Review your colleagues’ notes. 

o Did anyone choose the same technique as you?

o How are they going to use it differently to you?
o Do you have any suggestions or advice? – Tell them.

If you have any questions about anyone’s posts, ask them. Don't forget to check the wall to see if anyone has a question about your technique.
 

Guess the Lesson Objective 

As teachers, we often tell students our lesson objectives (or aims, or the questions we want them consider) at the
start of the lesson. This can be very helpful, because it encourages students to focus on the most important aspects of
the lesson. However, if this happens every lesson, students can sometimes take it for granted and start ignoring the
objectives. Here is one strategy for dealing with this problem. It works best if it is only used occasionally, as
students enjoy the novelty of it. 

 Tell your students that you are not going to tell them the lesson objectives or key questions at the start. Instead
you are going to ask them at the end what they think the objectives or key questions were. Explain to your students
that this is partly to get them concentrating, and partly so that you can check with then how relevant your teaching
is to the key question.
 Ask the students at the end of the lesson what your objective or key questions were. 

This will ensure the students listen very carefully and think about the ‘big picture’. It will also help you to be really
focused on what you cover in the lesson. 

Provocation

A ‘provocation’ is an activity that provokes or encourages student thinking. Some examples include:

 Ask the students to think of the questions they want to ask about a particular topic.
 Use a relevant image to provoke thought. Get the students to describe what they see, to respond to what they
see, and then to discuss what they now want to know. This is similar to the ‘See – Think – Wonder’ approach.
 Demonstrate an experiment (or show a video of it). Instead of explaining why it works, ask the student open-
ended questions about it. You can see two examples of this here.

Visible Thinking 

Visible thinking is an approach designed to make the learning process clearer. In other words, students get to know
the processes which go into deeper thinking. This helps the students to develop their thinking strategies. Some
examples include:

 Think - Puzzle - Explore. This is a ‘thinking routine’, which links students’ existing knowledge to their future
independent enquiry. Students answer the questions:
o What do you think you know about the topic?
o What questions (puzzles) do you have?
o How can you explore this topic?
 

 See – Think – Wonder. This is another thinking routine. It is designed to work with images, but could also work
with lots of other things, such as watching a video clip, or carrying out an experiment. Students answer the
questions:
o What do you see?
o What do you think about that?
o What does it make you wonder? 
 

The Visible Thinking Project has an excellent website

at:http://www.visiblethinkingpz.org/VisibleThinking_html_files/VisibleThinking1.html  

Questioning

 Give students time to think of an answer before asking for responses. This might just mean insisting on a
waiting time of 3 seconds. Research shows this makes a significant difference, with lots more students willing to
answer the questions. It might be that you give students 5 minutes to think about an answer before you ask them for
their response..
 Consider choosing students to answer, rather than asking for a show of hands. That way all students know they
 might be asked to contribute. Some teachers write student names on ice-lolly/popsicle sticks and choose a stick
from the pile each time they want an answer to a question. Remember that the students don’t see the sticks. This
means that you could actually select students you think are well-suited for each question.
 Use open-ended questions where possible. This allows students to think more deeply.
 Push the students to develop their points by asking follow-up questions. Good questions include, “Go on...",
“why do you think that?”, “could you say more?”.
 Get students to write their own open-ended questions for the class to discuss, or exam-style questions for the
class to answer. You could then choose the best ones to be answered in the next part of the lesson or for
homework. 

Class debate 

This is a great way of structuring a discussion. It encourages students to work together to develop their ideas, and
helps them to apply their existing knowledge on a topic. 

 Students work in groups to prepare statements either for or against a key statement (eg, ‘Shakespeare’s Richard
III is a completely evil character’). If you have a large class, you could choose several different statements on the
same topic, and have one group working ‘for’ and one working ‘against’ each of these statements.
 Students feed their statements back to the class.
 Groups then have time to think about questions they want to ask other groups. These questions can be used as
the basis for a debate across the opposing groups.
 If you have multiple statements being discussed, you could get the other groups to vote on which arguments
they found most impressive. 

Quiz creation
Get your students to design quizzes to share amongst the class. This could be done on paper, or you could use a free
online tool such as Quizlet or Hot Potatoes. If your school uses as a learning space such as Edmodo or Moodle,
these also have quiz-creation tools. 

Experimentation 

Use science experiments to reinforce the learning points. Help students to ask their own questions, and design their
own experiments to answer these.

 If materials are not available, you can still ask students to plan an experiment. You could also consider the use
of online simulators if you aren’t able to perform a particular experiment with the students.
 Use spreadsheets of raw data which students can interrogate with formulae and other analysis techniques.

More generally, students benefit in all subjects from creating theories and testing them out. Encourage students to
ask questions of the material they are studying, and to ask, ‘what if...?’  

Exit activity 

Ask students to do something on exit from the classroom which keeps them thinking right to the end, such as:

 Students write one thing they have learned and one question they want to discuss on a ‘post-it’ note, and stick
them to the wall as they leave. Teachers can look at the answers to assess what the students have learned. They can
use this in their planning for their next lesson, changing their plans if needed. This activity also encourages
students to think about what they have learnt right up until the end of the session.
 Teachers ask an ‘exit question’ or give an ‘exit fact’. The question or fact should be as thought-provoking as
possible. For example, it could be a fact which would challenge some of the key ideas discussed during the lesson.
This might link to the theme of the next lesson. The idea is to ask or say something which will provoke discussion
 as the students leave the room. It should keep them talking as they go down the corridor to their next lesson. 

The ‘Flipped Classroom’ 

Traditionally, classes have often focussed on helping students to acquire knowledge, with homework time being
used for the development and application of this knowledge. In a flipped classroom, the opposite happens. Students
get to know a topic before the lesson, and then the lesson is used for activities which develop their thinking and
understanding. 

 Examples of activities in preparation for the lesson include:

 Note-taking from a textbook

 Reading an article or a chapter from an academic book on the topic
 Listening to a podcast or watching a video. These could either made by the teacher or found by the teacher on
the web
 Doing some research - for example, making a hand-out on a key topic to share with the rest of the class.
 

Examples of lesson activities include:

 Discussion or seminar based on the homework

 A problem-solving task
 An essay-planning activity
 Almost all of the activities suggested in this hand-out.
Week 2

2.4 Reflection
 45 minutes

  Looking back 

Look back at the notes you made on your KWL chart in your journal at the start of the week:

 What can you add in the ‘Learned’ section?

 Is there anything in the ‘Want to know’ section that was not answered this week or you are not clear about? 

Post your questions in the whole class 2.4 Reflection discussion .

 

  Looking forward

In Weeks 3 and 4, you are going to try an activity with your learners. 

These two weeks are going to be busy. 

Take a few minutes to read through the schedule for both weeks. If you think you are going to have any difficulties keeping to the schedule, please
contact me in the Course Café.
Weeks 3 & 4

 4 hours 30 minutes

Over the next two weeks, you are going to:

  Completion criteria: 
1. prepare an activity that you are going to try out in your
school o Write and share a lesson activity.
2. decide how to measure how successful the trial was o Review your colleagues’ lesson activities.
3. try the activity o Try your activity in the class and reflect on what
4. review what happened. happened.

In order to make sure that all of you complete the tasks, please follow the suggested timetables. If you think you are going to have any
difficulties keeping to the schedule, please contact me in the Course café.

3.1 Preparing the activity  120 minutes

3.2 Teaching and reflecting  120 minutes

3.3 Review results  30 minutes

Week 5

 2 hours 30 minutes

This week we will explore the following questions:

  Completion criteria: 
 Did I get what I wanted out of this course?
 What are my next steps? o Review your personal aims.
 What support do I need and where can I find it? o Set yourself some short-term and medium-term goals.

We recommend that you access the course every day to check your messages and keep up any discussions. To help you manage your time, here
is a suggested guideline of when to carry out the activities of the week.

5.1 Reviewing my personal aims  60 minutes

5.2 Planning your next steps  90 minutes