Active Learning in the Middle Grades

What is active learning and what does it look like in the classroom? If students are participating in active learning, they are playing a more engaged role in the learning process and are not overly reliant on the teacher (Bransford, Brown, 8c Cocking, 2003; Petress, 2008). One definition of active learning is:The process of having students engage in some activity that forces them to reflect upon ideas and how they are using those ideas. Requiring students to regularly assess their own degree of understanding and skill at handling concepts or problems in a particular discipline. The attainment of knowledge by participating or contributing. The process of keeping students mentally, and often physically, active in their learning through activities that involve them in gathering information, thinking, and problem solving (Collins 8c O'Brien, 2003, p. 5). Active learning frameworkAdvocates for active learning in the middle grades agree that the most lasting learning comes through direct experience and interaction with the intellectual, social, and physical environments (Edwards, Kemp, 8c Page, 2014; Nesin, 2012; NMSA, 2010). The purpose of this article is to propose the following framework to describe and plan for different types of active learning instruction in middle grades classrooms.Intellectual. Our primary goal in the classroom should work to get students intellectually engaged with the content. We want students to be intellectually active rather than mindlessly and passively receiving information and just accepting the authority's delivery, whether that authority is the teacher or the textbook. Instructional methodologies that involve actively constructing new knowledge through problem-solving, questioning, and inquiry have long been advocated by leaders in the middle school movement (NMSA, 2010). Active learning requires students to intellectually engage with the content using critical thinking or higher levels of thinking such as analysis or synthesis. In order to promote relevance and relationships, active learning strategies require students to go beyond memorization or basic comprehension and understanding, and move toward more active types of thinking such as those at the upper end of Bloom's Taxonomy that require students to apply, analyze, evaluate, and create (Anderson 8c Krathwohl, 2001). Young adolescents have an intense curiosity about the world around them and are trying to make sense of that world. Instructional strategies that capitalize on that curiosity and require students to actively make sense of the content are ideal for the middle grades. Instruction is most effective when teachers use that curiosity to build on the existing knowledge students bring to the classroom (Nesin, 2012). Active learning strategies such as problem-solving, higher-level questioning, inquiry, concept maps, synthesizing research for papers or presentations, synthesizing what they have learned for multimedia projects such as Voicethreads, Glogsters, or Prezis, puzzles, brainteasers, and interdisciplinary projects work well for this.Social. Intellectual involvement alone with content isn't enough in a successful middle school; at the developmentally-sensitive ages of 10-15, young adolescents are peer-oriented and allowing students to work collaboratively is a significant aspect of classrooms that are aligned with the middle school concept (AMLE, 2012). Getting students socially active can be as simple as having partners discuss a question about the content, but can be more involved such as having small groups of students work on a unit project. Small group activities that allow middle level students to work with each other as they learn content are engaging to young adolescents {Nesin, 2012). Small group and whole class discussions are also methods for getting students socially active in their learning (Edwards, 2014). Physical. Young adolescents are typically active and energetic, and physical movement in the classroom is important as well. …