Active Is as Active Does

Learning is not a spectator sport. Students need to be actively doing something or they tend to zone out. That's why faculty need to get students directly involved with content to challenge and enhance their processing of information and ideas. Activity is at the heart of active learning, a term coined for its emphasis on active rather than passive involvement in the classroom.

You can start by asking yourself, "What are my students doing right now?" Choosing appropriate action verbs to answer that question is the key to planning a wide range of appropriate active and engaged learning experiences for your students.

What's in a Word?

Consider the ways that students could explain the differences between the three branches of government. They could recall facts about them in a test, or write about them in an essay. They could also:

discuss them in a forum
draw them in a concept map
compare them in a chart or graph
conduct imagined interviews with selected branch members
analyze differences by coding a case study
create a podcast or video explaining the differences
and so on.

Most faculty are familiar with Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning. The framework consists of six learning categories positioned along a continuum ranging from simple to complex. Activities that involve Remembering and Understanding are at the lower end, Evaluating and Creating are at the higher end, and Applying and Analyzing are in the middle. It can be helpful to think about the degree of complexity you are offering when you choose different learning activities.

The handy chart below offers a variety of ideas for active learning according to Bloom's taxonomy. It also includes additional action verbs below the stairs that may be helpful in defining and describing learning outcomes. Action verbs --which are usually measurable-- help students understand what you want them to know or be able to do, and clues them in to how they will be evaluated. Download a copy and keep it ready for whenever you're planning active and engaged learning in the classroom or online.

Action Verb Stairs.png

^{Ida Hokkanen. Bloom's Taxonomy of Action Verbs and Activities https://teaching.usask.ca/documents/gmctl/Blooms.pdf}