Encouraging Active Learning in the Classroom

The most impactful change I’ve made in my classroom over the past few years is a simple exercise that came out of my work in #engineering education assessment.   At the start of each class period, I spend 1 minute discussing our #learning goals for class that day.   On our course website, I put these goals at the top of the page for each class to remind students what they should be able to do having followed the class, done the practice problems, and read the book.   When writing these goals, I keep the following in mind: 👩🏻🏫  What do my #students need to take with them from this class? 🌏  What fundamental knowledge should they learn, and how does this relate to the real-world? 👩🏻🔬 What is the “action” I want them to do? I try to state goals in a Bloom’s taxonomy framework where their knowledge gains are hierarchical in terms of their ability to do something.   How has doing this helped my students? 🙋🏻♀️ They ask more focused questions during class that show engagement with the goals and material. 👩🏻🎓 They know the goals of their studying and have a sense of mastery when it comes to exam time.   How has this helped me as an #instructor? 🙄 I don’t need to answer that “what’s on the test” question anymore. I point them to the learning goals. 🫶 When they’re stressed, I can better target what information is unclear by asking them “do you know how to do…?” and help them focus on that material. 🧐 It forces me to craft lectures and activities that align with our goals, rather than just what’s in a textbook, making my class more engaging and streamlining material presentation. If we're going to assess students' learning, we need to "write our own exam" by determining what they should know at the end of a course. Why not share this information with them? By letting students know the goals of the course - and thus what we're assessing them on - we empower them. This in no way tells them "how" to get an A. They still have to do the hard work of learning. But it helps them focus their studying efforts and benchmark their attainment.

In my classroom, we are working hard on figuring out the place of AI in our work cycle. This journey has revealed something unexpected: the process is impossible without what cognitive scientists have long known - students make sense of new information when they actively connect it to what they already know and transform it into something meaningful of their own. As we grapple with AI's role in education, we're discovering it's not just about new tools. It's about reshaping how we approach learning and creativity. This process of active transformation, I've realized, is our compass in this new landscape. Here's what this looks like in practice - a concise 10-list of principles that define this transformative approach: Connect before consuming - link AI insights to existing knowledge Transform, don't transfer - reshape AI outputs into personal understanding Question and construct - build new knowledge by challenging AI responses Make thinking visible - create visual representations of AI-generated concepts Find hidden patterns - discover connections across different AI responses Build mental models - construct personal frameworks for understanding Explain to understand - teach concepts to others to deepen comprehension Test and revise - actively check understanding against new information Create from chaos - generate original ideas from multiple AI inputs Reflect and integrate - connect new insights to broader understanding These principles guide us as we navigate AI and education. They've transformed our approach from passive AI consumption to active knowledge creation. This journey has reinforced my belief: AI tools are just the beginning. The real magic happens when students actively construct meaning rather than passively consume information. Important note: Every one of these insights applies to educators, researchers, and professionals working in AI-infused settings!!! How are you approaching AI integration in your field? What role do you see for active knowledge construction in your work? Let's continue this crucial conversation. #AIinEducation #DeepLearning #EdTech #FutureOfEducation #TeachingInnovation Michael Woudenberg Michelle Kassorla, Ph.D. Ashlee Russell, M.Ed. Scott Sommers, PhD Mike Kentz Amanda Bickerstaff Aman Kumar Daniel Bashir Sam Bobo France Q. Hoang Chrissy Macso, M.Ed Alfonso Mendoza Jr., M.Ed. Paul Matthews Jessica Stansbury Saleem Raja Haja Nigel P. Daly, PhD 戴 禮 Nikolas McGehee, Ph.D Justin Bruno

Three AI prompts every educator should try. Built with Gemini and fine-tuned for education to guide a student's learning journey. How can we ensure AI truly enhances learning, helps educators and students? For me, the answer is clear: it starts with deeply embedding pedagogical principles into the AI itself. LearnLM models, integrated directly in Gemini, are: - fine-tuned for education: - support multimodal inputs; - use a system instruction-first approach, letting you define role, tone, and behavior. Each prompt is a reusable, specified behavior – like a tutor, quiz creator, or content rewriter. Here are three of my favorite prompts from the Gemini 2.5: Prompt Guide: 1. The Science Tutor👨🔬 This prompt is incredible because it feels like you're talking to a real science teacher. When a student uploads a diagram and asks a question, Gemini doesn’t just give an answer. It challenges them, explains the logical relationships, and asks them to reason and explain their own connections. This practice helps to foster active learning and curiosity, two key principles of our pedagogy. 2. The Instructional Assistant 👩💻 This assistant is a game-changer for creating dynamic, interactive content. It allows educators to use existing course materials, like a YouTube video, to generate engaging role-playing scenarios. The student can then act as an expert on the topic in a conversation with the AI. This approach promotes active learning and curiosity, and because it uses different media and formats, it helps manage cognitive load and makes learning more adaptive and multimodal. 3. The Math Discourse Coach 👩🏫 When a student gets stuck on a math problem, the instinct is to give them the answer. But real learning comes from the struggle. This prompt turns Gemini into a coach that helps students reflect on their reasoning and explore alternate approaches. It’s designed to promote a "healthy struggle" by asking questions that challenge their thinking, which helps with metacognition and managing cognitive load. All 8 prompts from the guide are included in the carousel below Best to test those prompts in AI Studio: https://lnkd.in/d8B45nPk or via the Gemini API https://lnkd.in/dyZBTmKi   See the complete Prompt guide: https://lnkd.in/d9JBxfUd

Passive Learning—Failure of Our Education Failure in dental education doesn’t always come from lack of good educators—it often stems from a lack of engagement, disconnection from meaning, and outdated teaching methods. Let me share a true story. At one of my previous institutions, I had a conversation with a respected colleague—an excellent speaker known for his captivating lectures. He took pride in the applause he often received from students and firmly believed that a great lecture from a passionate teacher was the key to student learning. I admired his style deeply, but I gently challenged his perspective. “I agree you’re a phenomenal lecturer,” I said, “but even your best lectures might not stick if students aren’t actively engaged. Passive listening doesn’t equal learning. In our generation, we didn’t have distractions like phones or laptops, so lectures worked. But today’s students live in a different world. They need more than just good lectures—they need active engagement.” We made a friendly bet. He was about to teach a class on resin-modified glass ionomer cement. I said I’d ask the first D3 student who walked into my clinic what the topic was and what it meant. If they could answer, I’d buy him coffee. Later, a student arrived. “Did you attend Dr. A’s lecture this morning?” “Yes.” “What did he teach?” “Resin-modified glass ionomer cement.” “Great! So… what is it?” She looked puzzled. She couldn’t answer. The lecture had just happened. But the concept didn’t stick. The lesson? No matter how brilliant the lecture, if students are passive recipients, information fades quickly. Our system often equates teaching with talking. But real learning comes from doing, questioning, discussing, and reflecting. Active learning methods that make a difference: • Flipped classrooms: Let students review content beforehand and spend class time applying it. • Case-based learning: Use real clinical cases to encourage critical thinking and discussion. • Hands-on workshops and simulation: Engage students with experiential tasks that mirror real-world practice. • Peer teaching and team-based learning: Let students explain, debate, and solve problems together. • Quizzes, reflections, journaling: Encourage retention and self-assessment. The future of education is active. Let’s stop measuring success by applause and start measuring it by how much our learners remember, apply, and grow. What’s your experience with passive vs. active learning? How can we make the shift? #EducationReform #ActiveLearning #DentalEducation #FlippedClassroom #LearningThatSticks #BeyondTheLecture #MindfulTeaching

My hot take for the day is that the best thing to do in response to genAI in the classroom has nothing to do with genAI. Instead, we should use any disruption to double down on building classroom communities full of trust and an embrace of the frictionful state of learning. 1. Learn students’ names: perhaps one of the highest ROI things you can do to create a foundation for community. 2. Foster metacognitive habits: help student reflect on what they're learning and how. You want to build independent, active learners instead of passive receivers of information. 3. Teach with transparency: don't hide the ball. Put your motivations and pedagogical decisions on the table. 4. Communicate explicit learning objectives: tell them the point of every assignment and what they're supposed to get out of it. 5. Make communication policies clear: tell them how to get a hold of you and set expectations for when they can expect a response. h/t to Robert Talbert for this one. 6. Create frameworks for feedback: help them understand how to give and receive feedback. I really like @kimballscott's framework of Radical Candor for this. 7. Double down on active learning: get them engage in the work of learning. This is fun and often looks a lot like play! Don't just talk at them but get them talking to you and to each other. 8. Encourage experimentation: iterative improvement and failure is the way. 9. Cultivate community: help them fully leverage the rich relational web that is in the background of every classroom. This is so often untapped. 10. Connect individually with each student: it might be challenging, but do your best to get to know each student as an individual person. Feeling like you're seen and that you belong matters. 11. Build shared responsibility for learning: teacher and student both have to bring something to the table for learning in the classroom to happen. Call this out explicitly and have a conversation about what everyone is bringing. 12. Get alongside students: try to avoid being in front all the time but get beside your students so that they see you are on their side and wanting them to succeed. 13. Model vulnerability: when you mess up, and you will, own it. Much easier for them to do it if they see it from you. 14. Reframe from "have to" to "get to": everybody has some level of agency in their choice to be in the classroom. Remind everyone of the opportunity and privilege it is to be in a classroom. 15. Trust your students: what if you gave your students the benefit of the doubt and trusted them until they gave you a reason to do otherwise. 16. Offer opportunities for failure and retries: learning happens when we try, fail, reflect, and try again. 17. Embrace friction: learning, like any worthwhile activity, is hard work. Instead of looking for a frictionless experience where we accomplish things without effort, encourage students to dig into the worthwhile challenge of learning something new and growing.