STUDY GROUP OUTLINE

1. “Successful learners are active, goal-oriented, self-regulating, and assume personal responsibility for contributing to their own learning.” (Pg 147) What is your reaction to this statement?
2. Beginning learners must be more active in their learning than experienced learners, whose thinking has become more unconscious. (Pgs 147-148) What advantages does this unconscious thinking offer experienced learners? How can you move beginners towards unconscious thinking?
3. The section “Active Learning Tested In the Classroom” (Pgs 149-151) offers several suggestions for teachers, ranging from having students create their own titles and section headings to making vocabulary cartoons, from summarizing information to having students become the teachers. Choose any three and include them in lesson plans for next week. Why did you choose these three? Have you used them before effectively?
4. Ms. Cromley promotes the use of field trips for student learning “if students are actively involved.” (Pgs 149-150) She states that the more involved students were during and immediately following the field trip the more they remembered as much as three months later. What results would you predict for students who prepared for the field trip in advance, as well as being involved during and after? Have you taken your class on field trips? Where? What activities did you plan in conjunction with the field trip(s)? Were you satisfied with the experience(s)? Did your students enjoy the event(s)? Do you ever refer to field trips taken in past semesters or years (assuming at least some student carryover from semester to semester and year to year)?
5. Lecture is still a class staple for many teachers, especially when they are introducing completely new information. The author acknowledges that lecture is an effective method WHEN it is combined with other active-learning experiences (advanced textbook study and data examination). (Pg 151) Estimate the amount of time per week you lecture to your class. How does the lecture time correlate to the amount of time when your class in interacting with your lecture topic? Does your use of lecture vary widely depending on the topic you are teaching?
6. “Guided discovery” (Pg 152) seems to be an effective approach. Students explore learning but have clearly defined learning tasks to be accomplished, the teacher provides guidance, and multiple opportunities for practice are provided. Explain how you could use guided discovery when planning Internet assignments for your class that feed back into a content-based lecture.
7. “Adult students are used to active learning at work, but they may not be used to it in schools. It may help to explain to students why they are writing letters, doing experiments, taking field trips, or playing educational games rather than listening to a lecture.” (Pg 152) Have you observed that your students have strong boundaries between their school life and their job life? What boundaries have you identified because they hindered the students from learning? Have any of the boundaries actually helped you categorize information and/or target specific strategies?
8. Alision King proposes 24 questions that teachers could ask in their classrooms. (Pg 153) Select five and add them to your lesson plan next week. Distribute copies of the student handout entitled “Stimulate Your Active Learning” (Pg 153). Encourage students to ask each other these questions in class discussions, small group activities, and pair work. Post a copy of the questions prominently in your classroom to remind students to ask critical thinking questions.
9. “Making Learning Active,” (Pg 154) offers excellent active learning ideas. For each subject, choose one active learning idea from the list and add two more active ideas from your own classroom experience. Combine these ideas in a variety of ways to make your classroom a place where active learning is alive and vibrant! For ESOL teachers, focus on grammar, literature, American history, social studies, and geography. For ABE/GED teachers, focus on the sciences, American history, social studies, math, literature, and grammar.
10. “When you do lecture, also consider giving students a note-taking outline to fill in so that they learn to take organized notes.” (Pg 155) Have you tried this idea? How do students like it? Have you observed that their notes are more accurate, better organized, more legible, and longer since you provided outline shells? Do you do this regularly?

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