This article appeared August 4, 2014, in Faculty Focus. Dr. Shibley describes a few interesting active learning approaches.

Putting Students in the Driver’s Seat: Technology Projects to Decrease Passivity

Ike Shibley, PhD

Passivity still seems to be the norm for most college courses: students passively try to learn information from teachers who unwittingly cultivate a passive attitude in their learners. As the subject matter experts, many faculty are reluctant to give up some control. We know the material, there’s a lot to cover, and let’s face it, going the lecture route is often just plain easier for everyone. We “get through” the material, and students aren’t pressed to do anything more than sit back and take notes. Teacher and student thus become complicit in creating a passive learning environment.

Technology becomes an accomplice in the crime of passivity. When teachers think about technology, the goal is often to have students interact with instructor-created multimedia. Learners will watch a screencast or complete an online quiz. Sometimes the learner will interact with technology by doing a simulation or completing homework online. The assignments themselves are distinctly teacher-directed. All of this direction by the teacher equates to students learning to drive by sitting in the passenger seat.

What if we let students drive? Putting students in control may seem a bit frightening. The students will not be nearly as smooth in their driving as we are. We will not be able to reach the brake if things go badly. But learning to drive requires time behind the wheel, and learning course material requires that students become co-creators of knowledge rather than recipients of information.

Surprisingly, the solution to the problem of passivity might be the same accomplice that contributed to that passivity: technology. By putting technology in the hands of students, we put the learner behind the wheel. Instead of the teacher being the only one who works with technology to create learning objects, students become creators of learning objects.

In a recent undergraduate neurobiology course that I taught with a colleague, students had two ‘driving’ projects: one involving iMovie and one involving Garage Band. A number of audio and video editing tools exist, but these were the applications supported by our campus in our multimedia commons area.

For one project, we assigned each group of four-five students a chapter in the textbook that they needed to teach the class. Students in groups had to create a three-four minute iMovie video that introduced their assigned chapter. The rest of the class watched the video project prior to class and during class the groups presented the information in the chapter. Most groups included active learning exercises during class time to complement the introductory movie. By creating a video and then teaching a 50-minute class students, created their own flipped learning environment. Students responded positively and took ownership of the project which mirrored what researchers have dubbed “The IKEA Effect” in which people attach greater value to something they have had a hand in creating (Mochon & Norton, 2012).

In another project, students had to read a popular book related to neurobiology. They chose titles like Blink, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and The Brain That Changes Itself. Rather than assign them to then write a paper about the book, which seemed too formulaic and not much fun, we instructed students to create a three-minute podcast for their classmates. Students used sound effects, mock interviews, and music to create an engaging podcast. Because the podcast was limited to three minutes, each student had to convey the gist of the book in a short period of time. We used Yammer—a social media site that allows institutions to create closed groups specific to their institution—to facilitate commentary between students. In addition, students had to comment on five other podcasts.

Grades for both projects were rubric-based. Because the course was an upper-level course for majors, my team-teacher and I kept the rubric relatively open-ended so we could focus on the creative aspects rather than on the grade. We relied on student comments in Yammer to help guide our assessment of the podcasts, and a nice feature of Yammer was that we could sort by comment to see if a particular student was excessively critical across the board. The assignments constituted approximately 30% of the total course grade.

An auxiliary benefit to allowing our students to drive is that they become more adept at another form of communication. The technical consultant who visited the class pointed out to students that the projects will give them an edge in the job market. Digital storytelling is a form of communication and employers value technical literacy as well as oral and written communication skills.

When learners use technology on their own, they learn about content and about how learning occurs. The teacher will still create multimedia objects for students to use, but I suspect that the students will become more savvy consumers of the multimedia. With practice, the learner will begin to see how to more effectively engage with the media and might even become, dare I say, less passive.

Reference:
Mochon, Daniel, & Norton, Michael I. (2012). The IKEA effect: when labor leads to love. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22(3), 453-460. doi: 10.1016/j.jcps.2011.08.002

Dr. Ike Shibley is an associate professor of chemistry at Penn State Berks. He also serves as the conference advisor for The Teaching Professor Technology Conference, where he is co-facilitating a preconference workshop on blended learning course design.