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The Transform your Teaching podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. Join Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles as they seek to inspire higher education faculty to adopt innovative teaching and learning practices.
Hey, this is Jared from Transform Your Teaching. We are starting a newsletter, and we are going to include in it some feature articles from some of our guests or some of our hosts. We are also going to share some previous episodes and maybe some behind the scenes stuff and also preview our upcoming series. You can subscribe by clicking the link that's in our description.
Narrator:This is the Transform Your Teaching podcast. The Transform Your Teaching podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio.
Jared:Welcome to Transform Your Teaching. My name is Jared Pyles, and with me is Dr. Rob McDole. Hello, Rob.
Rob:Good afternoon.
Jared:We like to talk about innovative teaching practices. It's in our name, sort of.
Rob:Yes. Yes, it is.
Jared:It's in our byline or whatever you call that other thing we have underneath our podcast.
Rob:The thing that we do.
Jared:It's a motto. We like to talk about innovative teaching practices. And so we are starting a new series today on active learning, and we wanna spend this episode setting the stage for what's going to come because we're gonna talk about neuroscience and active learning and different activities that promote active learning, and we're also gonna talk about active learning spaces, which I'm really excited about. That's something that, that was the first thing that really attracted me to higher ed educational technology and such. It blew me away the first conference I went to when I started working in higher ed.
Jared:So we're gonna talk about that. But like we like to do at the start of our series, we'd like to kind of create a framework or create definitions and deliver those. So we're gonna spend this episode talking about how to understand active learning. And, well, it's going to be very difficult. Yes.
Jared:It is. So, if you are looking for this podcast to give you the definitive answer on what active learning is, well, maybe by the end of the series, we might have a better but at this point, we're both at a point where we're just like Yeah. I don't know.
Rob:So when we talk about it, you know, we've talked about this leading up. And just so our listeners understand, we're we're curious about terms that get used and things that we see. And you just heard from Jared as to what really intrigues him, and it's active learning spaces. So we have this word active learning, and we both have this question of what is it? Well, we first started talking about it, and we thought we understood what it was.
Rob:Yeah. That's great. But the more we started looking into it, the more we realized we really don't understand this, and we feel like the literature doesn't really either because you get different things. So our hope and desire with this first episode is to just have an exploratory conversation, hopefully get all the questions that each one of us has out into the open, and then we're going to bring in guests who are actually operating in these fields. And as Jared said, we're gonna bring neuroscience into it, some of the research we've been looking at and things that we've been reading, but we also wanna hear from people who are, you know, experts in their field.
Jared:Because we are not.
Rob:No. For sure. We wanna showcase some of these things that are going on in our own campus. You talked about active learning spaces, but we, you know, we also have this there's this kind of understanding out there, either k through 12 or higher ed where if you do lecture, then that's passive learning. Or if you're just doing reading, that's passive learning.
Rob:It's not active learning. And the more Jared and I have dug into this separately and together, the thing we've realized is, like, that's overgeneralization.
Jared:Yeah. It is.
Rob:And so we're gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk about the brain. And, hopefully, at the end of the series, like you said, have a definition that's helpful and allows our listeners to be able to filter this when they hear these terms used, whether in their schools or in higher ed. They can understand and even ask good questions as to what is the purpose of maybe this I don't know what you wanna call it, like a a professional development on being better at active learning. Yeah.
Rob:You know? So that's kinda where I'm at with it. I know you also have some questions along those lines. We talked about, you know, in terms of active learning spaces. Speak more to that.
Jared:Yeah. So active learning spaces are interesting. I first came across it at a conference, that I went to, and the theme was, I guess it was active learning. I didn't even really pay attention to it. Thought it was just going to be a conference on ed tech because at the time I was doing, more media producing.
Jared:So there was an element, there was a track that was AV, audiovisual stuff. So I thought, okay, I'll go down and watch these lectures and see what these other people are doing. And instead I ended up in this active learning track because there was like some crossover between because one of the presenters was doing a developing conference or one button recordings that you could do where a student could go in and push a button and record something with a green screen behind them for a presentation. So it was a way of them creating these spaces on campus for students to go and basically do the presentations they need to for a class in a more professional, instead of just like in their dorm room with it behind them or whatever. So it started there and then this presenter, I believe it was from Penn State, he said that the classroom, it limits learning.
Jared:And I was like, okay, I'm not sure I'd totally buy him. They started giving this information about how the traditional classroom doesn't necessarily fulfill the needs of a learner. And he went through all the data and all this stuff, and then he started introducing active learning spaces. So I was like, well, this is interesting. So I started going down this track and I ran across a presentation from someone at Purdue, they have an entire building, and we'll talk about this when we talk about the active learning space they have at Purdue when we have some of our guests on later, but there's an entire building just devoted to active learning spaces.
Jared:So it was like collaboration spaces, that was a term they were using, collaboration, learning and community, all these things. And all the rooms were set up in a way that it wasn't the traditional, I'm using air quotes, you can't see that, but the traditional learning space, which was just like a horseshoe for desks, and you have a professor in the middle and they're the one that's presenting. Mhmm. And the students are just passively, using air quotes again, absorbing the material. There's no sense of interaction.
Jared:But the active learning spaces they were creating was more long tables, not necessarily everyone's looking at the instructor at a given time. There's HDMI inputs at the tables for them to present on the projector at a certain point. There could be white spaces or whiteboards or TVs next to the tables. Could be webcams, things like that that encourage more collaboration inside of a traditional, again, air quotes, learning space. So that's where I was like, Oh, this is really interesting.
Jared:So I want to pursue this more. And I wanted to talk about active learning spaces on the podcast until Rob was like, Well, we should probably define active learning. And then I thought I had a definition for active learning. And he was like, are you sure that's the definition of active learning? I was like, yes, in my arrogance and ego.
Jared:But then it's changed, and now I don't have a definition so...
Rob:Yeah.
Rob:But I do wonder if it's around this area or this topic of when we use the term active, what do we mean by that? Do we mean effective? Are we talking about effective learning? Because if we go back to the definition of learning in terms of what I've used here on the podcast, you know, that learning is change that endures.
Jared:Mhmm.
Rob:That's a pretty simple definition. And active learning does not really lend itself easily to understanding how does that happen. You just get this term active. So does that mean in order for change to endure active, things have to take place? In other words, I need to be moving my hands, do I need to be moving my lips and talking to other people, or can I just talk to myself?
Rob:You know?
Jared:Yeah. It's like, what Do I need to be
Rob:on a treadmill? Right. Do I need to be Petting. Petting a puppy or a kitty? I know I'm being I'm using hyperbole here.
Rob:But For sure. But there are some folks that think that the only way you can do something is to, you know, create some sort of activity where they're actually moving. Now that's a whole another conversation.
Jared:And there is space for that in the garage.
Rob:There is. And I'm not saying there isn't. So the kinesthetic. Right? I think if we were to use those term the terms that we learned from the educational psychology side of things.
Rob:Mhmm. But if we're talking about effectiveness and learning, I don't think there's anything really helpful to learn by comparing passive and active because learning towards change that endures has to change the brain. Right. And, you know, that's a book that you and I you're in the currently right now, you're in the middle of reading.
Jared:Yeah. Uncommon Teaching.
Rob:Uncommon sense teaching. And it's basically brain science applied to teaching Yeah. And how we learn. So it's not really talking about the why. So let me be clear about that.
Rob:We're not talking about the why of education. We're talking about the how. And activity just by itself is not enough. Because I can be active doing something, but it doesn't it doesn't result in change that endures.
Jared:Mhmm.
Rob:Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. So you can give me a fidget spinner, and I can sit there and spin the fidget spinner while I'm also trying to recall math two plus two is four, but we're not having a conversation about math. Maybe it's maybe it's actually English class, and I'm studying for the quiz that's coming up in math class. You know?
Rob:But the teacher sees that I'm spinning the fidget spinner, so I'm active. Is that active learning? And I think the obvious answer to that is I would think not. It's not effective. And we know from what we've been reading in the brain in that Uncommon Sense book that it probably isn't.
Jared:Yeah. I I would just give a plug for this book, Uncommon Sense Teaching Practical Insights in Brain Science to Help Students Learn, by Oakley Rogowski and Sejnowski. I'm probably butchering that. Mhmm. But I'm about two thirds of the way through it.
Jared:I started listening to it on the airplane coming back from, Tennessee, and wow. I'm blown away. It's it's one of those where they walk through all these practical teaching activities that I always learned about or heard about and practiced in k 12. But I thought it was just like, think pair share.
Rob:Mhmm. Yeah.
Jared:I do, we do, you do, that one, you know, things like that that I've always heard about as, like, good best practices, but there was no sort of framework or foundation as to why those things work. And then this book does a great job of saying, well, the reason that think pair share works is because you have to give the brain time to bounce the, analogy that stuck with me is that everyone has an octopus with X amount of arms that they can juggle Short these term memory. Short term memory. And at some point there's too many balls for arms. Yep.
Jared:So something has to get dropped. Right. So that's all the new information coming in, right? But if you give them time to stop and reflect, it gives the octopus time to start throwing those balls at the back of the brain and have it bounce back so that it starts making the connections between short term and long term, or they call it working as upfront, right? Working memory, procedure.
Jared:Then long term memory and procedural.
Rob:Using the hypothalami.
Jared:Yes. It's an excellent book and I highly recommend, but it's kind of what we're using. I wouldn't say it's solely what we're using for this series.
Rob:Right.
Jared:But it's definitely, like I mentioned to Rob earlier, I thought I had an idea of what active learning was, but now this new information has come in and I have yet to synthesize my old definition with this new information. I'm looking forward to maybe having some sort of answers and a firmer definition by the end of this using this this book as a guide.
Rob:Yeah. So when we look at some of the folks that we're gonna be bringing in, that we hope to be bringing in, we're obviously, I think we're gonna have the folks from Purdue.
Jared:Yep.
Rob:We're gonna have probably two episodes on that.
Jared:Yeah. For sure.
Rob:So I'm I'm looking forward to that. Mhmm. Marshall.
Jared:Yep. Jody's coming back. They just finished in the recent I think just this last year they finished, in 2023, they finished a new active learning building. I think they renovated a library that they turned into an active learning building for you know, this kind of practice. So
Rob:And we're hoping to to interview our our own esteemed librarians here at Cedarville because one of the things that we've noticed, and we've asked, and we probably have some of our students Yeah. In and interview them as well Mhmm. Because they have been using the library more as a place to study in different ways
Jared:Mhmm.
Rob:In groups and then and individually than going to the library to just get books. Yeah. Which was kinda shocking to me.
Jared:Mhmm.
Rob:I mean, I guess it shouldn't because I remember being here as a student, and we all studied at the library. But I do recall using books a lot. Yeah. But we weren't using even though we had the Internet, we weren't using the Internet to the degree, I think, that students are now.
Jared:Right.
Rob:And that seems to be the place where they're headed. Like, instead of going directly to the library and and searching, doing a search on the library catalog, and I might be wrong, And I'm hoping, you know, we can get some insight into that from our library staff. But I think we wanna discuss that and and, you know, bring that up as well.
Jared:Yeah. They they told me when I went over there for a meeting, they said that the use of print books is up dramatically over the last couple of years.
Rob:Really?
Jared:Yeah. Like the check Did
Rob:they know why?
Jared:No. There's been no there's been no connection. I mean, they did attach a Chick fil A to it, but I don't think that they're like, that doesn't make a difference. The other thing they did do is allow they started allowing food now in the library. So they think that may have an increase, but that doesn't explain why more students would check out print books just Yeah.
Jared:Because they allowed us to in the But they've seen an increase in their library appointments, their use of students' usage of, print, and they've also seen an uptick in signing out of collaboration spaces that are there in the library. But also students are there all the time anyway. They don't need to reserve that
Rob:anymore. Every time I've been through, it has been packed.
Jared:Yeah. It's always packed. And apparently, the evenings when none of us are here and only students are using them, I said it's just it's incredible, the amount of people that are in there.
Rob:I am curious as to how maybe classrooms are being used during off hours, you know, when when they're not being used as classrooms. I wonder if students are going in and doing the same thing in those places.
Jared:One of the one the things that I recall from this conference was that over and over again presenters would say that students are going to find a space to learn outside of their dorm room when they wanna get out and figure out where they, want to go. Like, where's a place I can go to study? What's my favorite spot? You mentioned students. We have two of our student workers that are here with us this summer, Evan and Drew, and we're contemplating asking them to come on because we talked with them at lunch today and asked them about, Hey, when you go to study, where do you go?
Jared:And both of them said, The library. Like, why is that? And there were different reasons for that. So students are going to find places to study. And that was one of the main motivations for some of these schools to create these active learning spaces because they can help students, they can support that by giving them collaboration spaces, flexible seating, dry erase boards, you know, computer hookups, TVs, HDMI inputs, stuff like that to facilitate that so they don't have to so the students don't feel like they have to go off campus or somewhere else.
Jared:They can stay on campus and collaborate and work together or work by themselves, but giving them the tools to do that.
Rob:Well, I am looking forward to this. I'll be honest and say before I started reading that book, Uncommon Sense Teaching, I was, like, really bewildered about active learning. I understood that you, you know, you thought it was cool in the learning spaces, and I could see how that would be interesting, but at the same time, it just didn't make any sense to me. Mhmm. And then after reading that, I was like, oh, goodness.
Rob:This is gonna be fun. This actually lines up with so many other things that we've done in the past. And so I am curious now, you know, what does AI have to do with it, with active learning? How is that affecting a change that endures learning? Right?
Rob:So, I'm excited.
Jared:Yeah. Me too. I enjoy this because in the previous series, when we did competency based, I was on the fence, and you were firmly pro. And now we're both approaching this series with both being on the fence about what exactly
Rob:Open handed. Definitely open handed. Yeah. So I'm looking forward to seeing what what comes out of this. I hope our listeners will join us join us.
Rob:And if they've got questions, please write us and let us know. And and if you've got insights, like, if if you're a professional in this area because I gotta believe somebody probably has done some major research in this area, has thought about it quite a bit even here on campus. I just don't know. I don't know who that is.
Jared:CTLpodcast@cedarville.edu.
Rob:Please.
Jared:Send us an email. I feel like a YouTuber now saying that. Am I a YouTuber now?
Rob:Like and subscribe.
Jared:So in our next episode, we're gonna talk with Tracy Birdwell, who is, the assistant director for faculty support at Purdue University Center for Instructional Excellence. We talked with her off podcast a while ago and we're like, wow, this is it's incredible stuff. She's done a lot of research on active learning and active learning spaces, and we're gonna have her on to talk about it in our next episode. Hopefully she can help us nail a definition or get us closer
Rob:I'm looking forward to that.
Jared:So we're that we're less nebulous. Nebulas-less.
Rob:Well, to be clear, we have looked at definitions.
Jared:Oh, we have.
Rob:Lots of them.
Jared:We have. But, you know, you and I like to come up with our own definitions. Yeah. Like, we're the experts or something. We like to synthesize.
Rob:You wanna synthesize, and you wanna it needs to make sense. You need to put it in your own language.
Jared:So Yeah. So we'll do that in our next episode, but that's gonna do it for this episode. Thank you for listening to the Transform Your Teaching podcast. If you have any comments or questions or wanna join us in this series, send us an email at CTLpodcast@Cedarville.edu. Check us out on Flip.
Jared:Join us, there to continue the conversation. Like and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Join us on our blog as well, cedarville.edu/focusblog, and thanks for listening.