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JANET RANKIN: Well, active
learning is the idea

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that students, to
really learn something,

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to really understand something
have to be actively involved

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and that just sitting passively
and listening to a lecture

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really doesn't help students
develop the higher order

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cognitive processes that
they need to really,

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really understand something.

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So you can listen to something,
you can watch a movie,

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you can watch TV, and you
can generally get the plot.

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But if you're asked to
recall specific details

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or to even explain a
particular nuance associated

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with the TV show or movie,
you can't really do it.

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And that's what happens
often in a lecture,

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is that students will
sit in the lecture,

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they'll write down
what's being said,

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but they're not really
engaged with the material.

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So active learning is this
idea of, people say minds on,

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always hands on sometimes.

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So students have to be actively
with their mind thinking

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about the material,
applying what's being said,

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and given opportunities
within the lecture

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to apply what's being
taught or the topic at hand.

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And then active learning,
strictly speaking

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means that just one particular
individual is active.

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Interactive, we tend to parse
that a little bit and say

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interactive learning would mean
the student has been active

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in his or her own mind in
thinking about the material,

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but then is also interacting
with others, peers

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or potentially the
faculty member or TA

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in order to further
develop understanding,

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construct meaning for the topic.

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I always start maybe the
second session of the class.

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The second class
meeting is a discussion

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of what we know about
how people learn.

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So a discussion
of the literature

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and the research on human
cognition and learning.

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And if you take a
constructivist point of view

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or a constructionist point
of view, which really says

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that as I said
before, to understand,

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people have to make
meaning of a topic,

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they have to construct
their own meaning.

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And we show the research that
really shows that this is true.

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For higher level
cognitive processes,

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people have to be
actively engaged.

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And there's research
to show that.

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We also show the
classroom-based research,

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so [? Freeman's ?]
2014 paper that

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was a meta-analysis of
this 225 other studies that

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showed that in courses, in
college-level courses where

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active learning
was used, there was

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a 12% decrease in
the failure rate.

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And they normalized it to
all of the important factors

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that they should
be normalized to--

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the experience of
the instructor,

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the size of the class, the
type of the institution,

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the position that the class
is situated within the larger

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curriculum.

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And across the
board it was shown

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that there was a 12% decrease
on average of the failure rate.

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And they make a
comment in the paper

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that if that had been a
clinical trial of a drug

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and 12% of the people on
the drug had [? shown ?]

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marked improvement, they would
have had to stop the trial

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and give everyone the drug.

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So this idea that there's a
12% decrease in the failure

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rate in courses that use
active learning, to me

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is pretty compelling
that we should all

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be using active learning.

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So whenever possible, because
our students are MIT students,

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we use data, we
use the research,

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and we try to find really good
research, solid research that

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shows the way people
learn and then

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how to support that with
specific classroom practices.

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So many of the students
haven't had the experience

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of being in a class where
active learning was used,

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so they don't really
understand it.

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So when we start to talk
about it as a way of teaching,

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they may not really get it.

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So throughout the course,
from the first class

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all the way through,
I try to use

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several different types
of active learning

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exercises each class.

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So the students
themselves are actively

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engaged with the material
from the first day.

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So I may have them
break into pairs

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and discuss a particular
topic or identify

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something they didn't understand
from the pre-class readings.

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And then after three
minutes, they can either

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share their comments
with someone else

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or maybe we just report
out to the larger group.

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If they just report, if they
just write down and then report

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back, that's a pretty good
example of active learning.

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It's pretty simple,
it's what you

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might call low-hanging
fruit in terms

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of what it takes for a
faculty member to do that.

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So I'll do that, I'll
have them do that.

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And then I step
back and say, OK,

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why did I ask you
to think about it?

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Why did I ask you to
take three minutes

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before we had this discussion?

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So I try to deconstruct
the exercise for them,

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showing them the
advantages for the learner.