Richard Sickinger
Peter Baumgartner
Tina Gruber-Mücke (Editors)

PURSUIT OF
PATTERNLANGUAGESFOR SOCIETAL
CHANGE
A comprehensive
perspective of
current pattern
research andpracticeEditors: Richard Sickinger, Peter Baumgartner, Tina Gruber-Mücke
Book Design and Page Layout: Wolfgang Rauter, Stephan Längle
www.purplsoc.org
info@purplsoc.org

Creative Commons Licence CC-BY-ND
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0

Edition Donau-Universität Krems
ISBN Paperback: 978-3-903150-43-0
ISBN eBook: 978-3-903150-44-7
Printed on demand in many countries. Distributed by tredition
Krems, October 2018

Every effort has been made to make this book as complete and as accurate as possible,
but no warranty or fitness is implied. The information provided ist on an „as is“ basis. The
authors and the editors/publishers shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damages arising from the information contained inthis book. Responsibility for the information, licencing and views set out in their articles lies
entirely with the authors.

2

We would like to thank all
authors, contributors andparticipants of the
PURPLSOC Conference 2017
The objective of the PURPLSOC 2017 world conference was to stimulate
the attention for pattern related work, both in the scientific community
and the wider public, by showing its broad applicability and richness andbringing application/best practice examples from outside the scientificcommunity into research.
The PURPLSOC platform provides a forum for scholars from a variety offields as well as for a broad audience of practitioners and students tocome together and discuss topics such as:»»

Architecture, Urbanism and Regional Development»»

Design, Media, Arts & IT»»

Pedagogy, Education and Learning»»

Social Activism, Social Innovation and Grassroots Movement»»

Everyday Applications and Additional Disciplines

17

Active
Learning
Patterns for
Teachers

216

Iba, Takashi
Faculty of Policy Management, Keio University, Japaniba@sfc.keio.ac.jp

Utsunomiya, Yoshihiro
Benesse Corporationy_utsunomiya@mail.benesse.co.jp

This paper presents ‘Active Learning Patterns forteachers’, a pattern language which describes goodpractices for teachers to support students in becoming active learners. This pattern language consists of
45 patterns, which are classified into three different
categories: (A) Identify the seeds of curiosity, help themgrow, (B) Lift them up to the next level and (C) Enhanceeach other and keep changing. It was created basedon the interviews conducted with several teachers inJapan who have their own teaching styles, devices andtips to enable active learning in students. Recently, we
have been holding workshops for teachers in Japan topromote the introduction and application of these patterns in schools. In this paper, we describe the processof creating this pattern language and present the 45
patterns created.
Education; Pedagogy; Pattern Language; Pedagogical
Patterns; Educational Patterns

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PURPLSOC 2017: A comprehensive perspective of current pattern research and practice

1. Introduction
Our society has been dramatically changing because of informatization and globalization.
We are, therefore, asked to have enough creativity and ability to solve various problems
so as to enable the coexistence of different values and restructure the society. In thisfast-changing and increasingly complex society, what should children know and which abilities do they need to develop for their future? Although there are many important things tolearn, it would be most essential for them to have the ability to figure out what is necessary
in any situation and develop their abilities to achieve a particular goal; in other words, theneed to develop the ability to keep learning by themselves.
In Japan, the Curriculum guidelines were recently revised by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) to develop active and interactive ways of learning in school. Because of this educational innovation, the idea of active learning is common
nowadays, and many schools have been trying to practice this. According to the ‘survey on
the influence of the change in educational systems and university entrance qualification
2017’, around 40% of high schools in Japan have already started trying to improve theirstyles of education, to develop students’ active learning skills and abilities to think, judge
and express their own ideas. Over 70% of schools answered that they wanted to improvetheir classes from the perspective of active learning.
However, many schools are still struggling with the introduction of active learning into theactual class activities. Many teachers expressed concerns, such as ‘It would be difficult for
students to learn something essential from the interactive activities and discussions’; ‘We
don’t have enough time for extra activities in class’; ‘Even though we know the great examples of active learning, this style would not suit our students’.
Based on this background that we created, ‘Active Learning Patterns for Teachers’, by compiling many good practices of teachers for the active learning of students. This pattern of
language comprises 45 patterns for teachers to support their students to be active learners
and continue to develop themselves.
It is especially useful for the following types of teachers (1) those who are not sure as to how
to apply the idea of active learning in a class (2) those who have difficulty in describing how
they have been approaching active learning and (3) those who want to systematically introduce this concept to the entire school. Using these patterns, it will be easier for teachers
to self-reflect and share their experiences with other colleagues. These ‘vocabularies’ werecreated based on the actual experiences of some teachers who have been trying to design
their classes in terms of active learning.

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Active Learning Patterns for Teachers

In this paper, we will describe the process of creating active learning patterns for teachers,present the 45 patterns created and three different ways of expressing this pattern language and introduce some examples of its application.

2. Creation Process
Active Learning Patterns for Teachers was created using our standard process of creating apattern language (Figure 1). It contains three different phases (Iba and Isaku, 2016); Pattern
Mining, Pattern Writing and Pattern Symbolizing, as is summarized below.

Figure 1: The Process of Creating a Pattern Language

2.1. Pattern Mining
In the phase of Pattern Mining, we first conducted ‘Mining Dialogue’ to extract practicalknowledge from some teachers through a dialogue, ‘Clustering’ for finding out some common patterns from the collected data and ‘Seed Making’ for organizing them by writing
down the ideas in a specific format as ‘Seed of Pattern’.
In Mining Dialogue, we extracted good practices (rules of thumbs and tips) from 12 teachers
who daily design their classes in the active learning style. They all had different teachingbackgrounds with different subjects and different types of schools; both public and private
elementary schools, junior high school, high school and university in different geographical219

PURPLSOC 2017: A comprehensive perspective of current pattern research and practiceareas. Every Mining session was conducted with 2 to 4 teachers within four hours (Figure 2).
In the end, 430 elements which, according to the teachers, are important for active learning,were collected and written down onto sticky notes.

Figure 2: Mining Dialogue in the phase of Pattern Mining
In Clustering, we classified the collected data into groups, based on the KJ method (Kawakita, 1967). Twelve people collaborated together to figure out the essence of the contents
written on the individual sticky notes, and arrange their positions according to their meanings. In this way, after 8 hours, groups of notes with similar meanings gradually appeared,
and 430 fragments of data were classified into 131 groups. Because we had too manycards, it was better to work on the clustering on the floor although it is usually conducted ona big table (Figure 3). After 8 more hours of organizing the sticky notes, 45 groups remainedin the end (Figure 4).

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Active Learning Patterns for Teachers

Figure 3: Clustering (First Half) in the phase of Pattern Mining

Figure 4: Clustering (Second Half) in the phase of Pattern Mining
In Seed Making, every single group generated in the clustering was written down into a
specific format of ‘seed of pattern’ to summarize the context, problem and solution of eachidea. Writing them down in a simple form, helped us avoid the duplication of ideas and leakage of important elements and also made the step of Structure Building much easier andfaster. Structure building is a process of figuring out the whole picture of ‘good practicesof teachers for active learning’ from the similarities and relations among the 46 patterns(Figure 5). It starts with a bottom-up approach; however, it is also important to consider thereaders’ perspectives, such as readability and the heuristic level of each pattern. In the end,
three main categories—A, B and C — were generated.

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Figure 5: Structure building in the phase of pattern mining

2.2. Pattern Writing
Pattern writing is the next phase of creating a pattern language, where we wrote the fulldescription of seed of pattern; context, problem, force, solution, action and consequence.
In this phase, it is necessary to consider the positions of every single pattern in the whole
picture, as well as what was discussed in the Mining Dialogue.
In pattern review, we brushed up the patterns written by individual writers in a group discussion (Figure 6). All the patterns should be looked at from different perspectives to eliminate any misunderstanding and improve the quality of the description. Sometimes it isnecessary to reconsider the relationships and positions of patterns and re-structure them.
In fact, this phase of revising and correcting were repeated over and over again, to make ourpatterns reach the expected level of quality.

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Active Learning Patterns for Teachers

Figure 6: Pattern review in the phase of pattern writing

2.3. Pattern Symbolizing
Pattern symbolizing is the last phase of creating a pattern language and it includes patternnaming and pattern illustration to symbolically express the patterns (Figure 7). This process
is still explorative and some contents of the patterns could be further improved in thisphase since the essence of patterns has to be reconsidered to draw symbolic illustrations.
Active learning patterns for teachers were finally completed with the designed booklet andcards.

Figure 7: Pattern Illustrating in the phase of pattern symbolizing

3. Patterns
Active Learning Patterns for Teachers consists of three different categories: (A) Identify theseeds of curiosity, help them grow, (B) Lift them up to the next level, and (C) Enhance eachother, keep changing. In this section, we introduce the patterns in these three categories.

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3.1. (A) Identify the Seeds of Curiosity, Help Them Grow
The first category consists of the following pattern groups; ‘Make the learner-centered class’‘Open one’s heart’ ‘Find out the seeds of curiosity’ ‘Feel the fun of broadening’ and ‘Makea connection between learning and oneself’. These categories summarize the basic ideas
for the education with active learning and each of them consists of three patterns for the
better practices of teachers. For example, in order to ‘make the learner-centered class’, thefollowing patterns are necessary; ‘Active learner’, ‘Standing on the same side’ and ‘Growthin the long run’. Table 1 shows all the 15 patterns in the category (A) Identify the seeds ofcuriosity, help them grow.
A. IDENTIFY THE SEEDS OF CURIOSITY, HELP THEM GROWNo.

Pattern Name

A1

Context, Problem and Solution

Active learner

You want your students to learn things more
actively. In this context, students will however keep
expecting teachers to tell them what to do, as longas you believe that you are at the center of the class,organizing everything for them. Therefore, create anenvironment which encourages students to recognize important things to learn and try to take action
by themselves.

Standing on thesame side

You expect your students to learn things more
actively. In this context, students are likely to expect
their teachers to tell them a correct answer, without
trying to work out a solution by themselves. Therefore, you have to stand on the same side as yourstudents and design a class in such a way as if you’retrying to figure out the answers together.

Growth in thelong run

You want your students to acquire essential skills tolive well in the future society. In this context, it might
not be easy for teachers to focus on the training forlong-term results, especially when they have to show
some visible results of their teaching in the coming
exams and so on. Therefore, find out an ability which
would be very important for students’ future, shareits significance with their parents and incorporate it
into the class activities and the assessments.

A2

A3

A4
Everyday talk224

Pattern Illustration

You want to know more about your students. In thiscontext, however, talking about the class during the
break time may not help you so much to understandyour students. Therefore, enjoy the conversation
with your students, in the way you usually talk withthe people who you are personally interested in.

Active Learning Patterns for Teachers
A5
Friendlyneighbors

You want to design a class in which students
influence each other to improve themselves. In thiscontext, it might be difficult for some students toexpress themselves in class when they worry too
much about what other people would think. Therefore, create opportunities for students to graduallybuild good relationships with each other to be able
to feel relaxed to talk about themselves.

Natural Response

You expect your students to concentrate on theclass and learn things more deeply. In this context,
students could easily lose their concentration, especially when they are supposed to sit still in the chair,keep quiet and just listen to the teachers. Therefore,
create some activities for students to talk and moveactively in class and let them feel free to express
their physical and psychological reactions.

Signs of Interest

You want to figure out what actually interests thestudents. In this context,, you may simply ask yourstudents about their current interests, but it issometimes difficult even for them to understandtheir preference and express it in their own words.
Therefore, give attention to the emotional changes
in your students during the class and ask them lateron why they reacted strongly on a specific topic or
activity.

Curiosity Digging

You want students to enjoy learning. In this context,
students may get a negative impression about
learning, if they are always asked to study different
subjects thoroughly and get rid of all the weak points
by studying harder. Therefore, create opportunities
for them to learn about things which they are truly
interested in, in order to let them experience thereal fun of learning.

Visualizing Ideas

You want to support your students to deepen theirown ideas. In this context, however, as long as students keep their ideas in their own mind, it would be
difficult to deepen and develop these ideas because
teachers cannot easily support this process. Therefore, create opportunities for students to output
their ideas in various ways.

Good and Better

You are going to make some comments on what
students have done. In this context, students may
get demotivated if you simply praise them withlenient criteria or you just strictly point out the weaknesses. Therefore, make sure that you first point out
some good parts of what they have done and thentell them the points which could be improved.

Upgraded
Perspectives

Students have something they are curious about
or some challenges they have in their lives. In thiscontext, however, in their processes of exploring
what they are interested in, they might get stuck
on some problems or easily lose their enthusiasm
about it. Therefore, show them other possibilities todevelop what they are currently interested in, or findsome connection with something else from different
perspectives.

A6

A7

A8

A9

A10

A11

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A12

Links forDiscovery

You expect your students to experience the real funof learning. In this context, it might be difficult for
students to keep motivated if learning means only
obtaining knowledge and becoming able to solve
problems on the exams. Therefore, create opportunities for students to understand the phenomenon in the society using the knowledge they justgained from the class and let them experience how
the networks of different knowledge could bringthem new discoveries.

Position Mapping

You want your students to learn something moredeeply. In this context, they tend to be passive learners who just keep studying what is provided in class,
if they do not know the significance and the goal ofwhat they are currently studying about. Therefore,show them the position of what they are currently
learning about, in the wide range of studies.

A13

A14

You expect your students to maximize their opportunities of learning. In this context, however, theycannot effectively conduct any activities or tasks
unless they get the point of doing them. Therefore,
tell the students about the point of your class andthe purpose of every assignments.

Underlying
Intentions

A15

You expect your students to think about what tolearn and how to learn, for their own future. In thiscontext, things would not be effectively learned if
students did not know why they are important tothem. Therefore, talk with the students about their
future, encourage them to think what skills theyneed and how they should acquire them.

FutureReflection

Table 1: Patterns in the category (A) Identify the Seeds of Curiosity, Help Them Grow

3.2. (B) Lift Them up to the Next Level
The next category consists of the following pattern groups; ‘Get the power to change’ ‘Create
opportunities to go forward’ ‘Broaden the current world’ ‘Challenge yourself to go beyond’and ‘Keep improving’. These are for teachers who support students to keep being active
learners. Table 2 shows the patterns in the category of (B) Lift Them up to the Next Level.
B. LIFT THEM UP TO THE NEXT LEVELNo.

Pattern Name

B1
Learning How to
Learn

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Pattern Illustration

Context, Problem and Solution
You expect your students to become life-long learners. In this context, however, it is not possible for you
to support the students to learn something outsideof school or after their graduation. Therefore, keep
in mind that school is the place for students to learn‘how to learn’, and try to improve the students’ skills
for active learning.

Active Learning Patterns for Teachers
B2

Questioning Skills

You want your students to think for themselves tosolve a problem. In this context, however, students cannot develop their ability to think aboutsomething deeply and their opinions may be easily
swayed, if they just keep trusting the information
provided. Therefore, encourage students to raise
a lot of questions about various phenomena andmotivate them to want to know about the things in
the world.

Persistent Efforts

There is specific knowledge and certain skills thatstudents need to acquire. In this context, however,students will not develop their abilities to learn
from a failure if they keep being evaluated by asingle exam. Therefore, provide assignments whichallow students to start all over again, by asking theirfriends for advice and improving the way to tackle
the problem.

Attractive
Entrance

Some students are not willing to study. In thiscontext, they tend to get more de-motivated if you
try to teach them enthusiastically or talk about thesignificance of learning. Therefore, set a clear goalto achieve, start the class with something fun forstudents and lead them to get them into the moodfor learning.

Easier Steps

You want every student to try to complete theassignment. In this context, however, some students
easily give up trying, especially when there are too
many things to memorize and when the tasks seem
too hard for them. Therefore, keep the goal of theassignment as it is, but try to make the questions
sound easier for students to keep motivated.

Several Ways
to Join

You want your students to make use of theopportunities, such as class activities and school
events, to improve themselves. In this context, somestudents are willing to participate in school eventsand class activities, whereas others miss on suchopportunities to grow. Therefore, set different ways
to participate in an event, so that it is easier for more
students to join it.

Tools for
Exploration

Students are about to start explorative activities. In
this context, if you let students decide everythingby themselves, they may not be able to go beyond
what they can already do. Therefore, make it clear
what students should learn from the activities andprovide them any means, method or information if
necessary.

B3

B4

B5

B6

B7

B8
Experience of
Ideas

You are teaching students a new idea. In thiscontext, ideas taught in class will never become auseful knowledge for students, if they keep trying
to memorize them for exams. Therefore, create an
opportunity for them to actually experience the idea
you have taught in class.

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B9
Positive Confusion

You expect your students to learn things in more
active way. In this context, students would not get
motivated to study more, if the class is too strictly
organized, or if they feel they could understandeverything in the class. Therefore, ask students aquestion at the end of the class, which would makethem keep thinking about what they learned.

Ignition to
Challenge

You want your students to go beyond what they aretoday. In this context, if you let your students set
up their own goals and problems, they tend to stayin what they can already do today and, therefore, itwould be difficult for them to make a rapid progress.
Therefore, draw out the motivation of students, bysetting a problem which would be solved with a fairamount of effort, and keep reminding them of thevalue of challenging themselves.

Chance toShow Off

Students are conducting a project or anotheractivity. In this context, they would not get motivated to strive for better quality of the output if they
were only presenting it in class. Therefore, make anopportunity for students to present their project infront of external audiences and get them motivatedto polish up the outputs.

B10

B11

B12
QualityBorderline

B13
Decision-Making
Experience

B14

Food for Change

228

Students are conducting their own projects. In thiscontext, it is difficult for them to imagine which levelof quality is required to achieve their own goals. Therefore, show them the expected level of the output
quality by using examples.

You expect your students to open the way to theirown future. In this context, they will not learn tomake important decisions themselves if they keep
following somebody else’s decisions. Therefore,
give them a lot of opportunities to make their own
decisions and learn from the results.
You expect your students to be positive about
receiving comments or opinions from others and totry to learn things from them and improve themselves. In this context, they tend to take the commentsfrom others as criticisms and be afraid of expressing
themselves. Therefore, support the students andprovide positive experiences of having different
opinions or points of view and let them understandhow these differences could bring them new discoveries or opportunities to improve themselves.

Active Learning Patterns for Teachers
B15

You expect your students to learn things from theirown activities or experiences and develop theirpractices by themselves. In this context, independent reflection of activities may not bring themany deep insight about the points to improve andpossibilities to develop. Therefore, let them have a
dialogue with others to look back on their projects
from more extensive points of view, so that they canlearn more from their own experiences.

Reflective
Dialogue

Table 2: Patterns in the category (B) Lift Them up to the Next Level

3.3. (C) Enhance Each Other, Keep Changing
The last category of patterns are for teachers to ‘Think about the authentic roles of teachers’, ‘Change the focus’, ‘Collaborate with students’, ‘Make the learning active and attractive’and ‘Enhance each other with other teachers’. These patterns explain how teachers cankeep improving their practices. Table 3 shows the patterns in the category of (C) Enhance
Each Other, Keep Changing.
C. ENHANCE EACH OTHER, KEEP CHANGINGNo.

Pattern Name

C1

Pattern Illustration

Context, Problem and Solution

Learning Teacher

You want to provide students with a better education. In this context, however, because your dailytasks take first priority, there is not enough time foryourself to gain new knowledge or learn new ways ofteaching. Therefore, keep in mind that it is importantto get opportunities to learn new stuff and keep
challenging yourself, in order to improve the qualityof your teaching.

Connection to theWorld

You want your students to get enough skills to live
actively in the future society. In this context, the goalof learning in the traditional system is for students
is to receive good evaluation on the performanceat school. Therefore, talk about the wider world
beyond the classroom, pose a question and let
students learn things in the connection with theactual society.

Teaching Principles

You want to provide students with a better education. In this context, the traditional educational
system is not always flexible enough to adapt to
the fast-changing society. Therefore, figure out theabilities or skills which will be required in the futuresociety and share your educational principles withyour students, their parents and your colleagues.

C2

C3

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PURPLSOC 2017: A comprehensive perspective of current pattern research and practiceC4

Room for Trials

You want to develop a new way of teaching for theactive learning of students. In this context, there
are already too many things to teach and there is
not enough time to teach additional things in class.
Therefore, capture the whole picture of the teaching
curriculum provided, order your teaching priorities
and focus on what you really have to teach in class,so that you can spare time for additional challenges.

Passionate Topics

You want to make your class more exciting andattractive. In this context, if you keep teaching thesame subject in the same way every year, your classmight be boring both for you and your students. Therefore, get excited about the material yourself first,
by exploring some topics which you are currently
curious about.

C5

C6
Try First

C7

Spontaneous
Adjustments

You want to design a class which draws out the students’ active learning. In this context, however, whensome students are not interested in what you have
prepared, or when they unexpected challenges, theclass does not go as you planned, Therefore, makea solid plan for the core part of teaching, leave theother parts flexible, so that you can organize thelessons in response to the actual reactions of thestudents.

Stock ofTechniques

You want to design a class more flexibly in responseto the students’ reactions. In this context, the class
may end up being unorganized. Therefore, haveready as many different means, tips or techniques ofteaching as possible, to be able to choose the mostappropriate of them depending on the class goal
and the actual reactions of students.

Collaborative
Improvement

Students seem to be not very interested in thelesson. In this context, they might not be satisfied
with how the class is going on and therefore do not
actively participate in the class. Therefore, tell thestudents honestly about your intention and struggles in the class, ask their opinions and improve theclass together through continuous dialogue.

Change of Scenery

You are about to trying a new way of teaching. In thiscontext, even if you have new contents or means
to teach, students would not learn a lot from theclass if their attitude towards learning remains thesame. Therefore, choose another place which will
be more appropriate for its contents and means,
without being too strict about following the customs
in school.

C8

C9

C10

230

You want to try a new way of teaching. In thiscontext, you may be afraid of making a mistake,hesitate to hesitate to use new tools and just repeat
the same way of teaching. Therefore, if you think it isnecessary for students, try first and later think about
how to improve it.

Active Learning Patterns for Teachers
C11
Unexpected Contents

Unexpected things happened during a class. In thiscontext, you may get irritated if the class does not
go as well as you planned and it makes students
uncomfortable as well. Therefore, take the unexpected event in a positive way, by welcoming it as agreat opportunity to make the class unforgettable
for students.

Editor for LearningYour class has some individual or group projects forstudents. In this context, students may not be able
to learn things deeply enough from the independent
work, although it is effective in the way of motivatingthem to learn. Therefore, take a time in the class
to visualize the ideas generated in the individual orgroup works, ‘edit’ them to show what they actuallymean and bring the students a deeper understanding of the subject.

Case-Study Cafe

Every teacher in your school has different styles ofteaching. In this context, it may be difficult for you
to keep finding new ways of teaching, because you
sometimes feel the limitation of generating new
ideas and analyzing them for a better education andlose confidence in your style of teaching. Therefore,make a time to talk with other teachers about thedifferent ways of teaching, the roles of teachers andso on.

Inter-Subject
Collaboration

You want your students to have fun while learning
the subject you are teaching about. In this context,
although you want to teach about your subject in
the connection with other subjects, you don’t haveenough time to prepare for teaching something
beyond your specialty. Therefore, ask other teachers
for a help and show the connection between what
you teach and material from the other subjects.

Diversity ofStrengths

You want to make your school more attractive. In
this context, it is hard for teachers to work independently to manage the tasks they have in school, as
they all have their own strengths and weaknesses.
Therefore, emphasize the importance of different
personalities and specialties of individual teachersand create a big team various teachers have different strengths.

C12

C13

C14

C15

Table 3: Patterns in the category (C) Enhance Each Other, Keep Changing

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4. Tools for Utilizing Patterns
In order to make the introduction and application of active learning patterns to the actual
teaching environments easier, we outputted it in three different ways; ‘ALP Assessment’for teachers to self-assess how many tips they have already put into practice, ‘ALP cards’
for them to share their experiences with others in the workshops and ‘ALP booklet’ which
describes every single pattern with some examples.

4.1. ALP Assessment
ALP assessment is a tool for teachers to check how many patterns for Active Learning they
have already put into practice and evaluate themselves. The radar chart visualizes thewhole picture of one’s teaching experiences in terms of patterns (Figure 8). It clearly tells
you the aspects that you have already achieved as well as some weaknesses to improve,and therefore, helps you to set a clear goal for a better education with the Active Learning
approach. Furthermore, it is also effective as an organizational self-assessment tool for aschool to improve its teaching environment as a whole community.
The results of the ALP assessment totally depend on how individuals evaluate themselves(Figure 9), and cannot simply be compared with others. However, it helps them visualize
the balance of their own teaching style or some features of each school, and encourages
the teachers to reflect on themselves and think about how they could improve their waysof teaching.

Figure 8: ALP Assessment

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Active Learning Patterns for Teachers

Figure 9: Diversity in ALP Assessment

4.2. ALP Cards
Every single ALP Card shows a Pattern Name and its symbolic Illustration, and states the
key sentence of Context, Problem and Solution (Figure 10). This set of cards can be mosteffectively used in the Dialogue Workshop, where teachers share their own experienceswith others, and learn from each other. Although it is usually difficult for teachers to make acomment on the other classes, this pattern language does not refer to any specific subject,
and, therefore, ALP Cards can help them share opinions beyond one’s specialities. They canalso help you ask someone else to tell you the experiences with Active Learning. It helps
teachers to talk about things that they already know about but find it difficult to explain.

Figure 10: ALP Cards

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PURPLSOC 2017: A comprehensive perspective of current pattern research and practice

4.3. ALP Booklet
ALP Booklet has a full description of all the patterns (Figure 11), whereas ALP Assessment
and ALP Cards show only the quick overview of each pattern. Therefore, ALP Booklet isuseful especially when you want to know more details about the patterns. In addition, thisbooklet introduces some experiences of teachers from the Mining Dialogue. These actual
experiences would make the abstract patterns sound more fresh and real. In a nutshell, thisbooklet works as a dictionary for teachers to look up some patterns, and also as a reference
book to think about their own ways of applying them.

5. Process of Utilizing Patterns
For the most effective application of Active Learning Patterns, ALP Assessment, ALP Cards
and ALP Booklet should be used according to their intended purpose (Figure 12). For example, teachers could use the ALP Assessment to evaluate their current teaching style,and share their experiences with others to learn from each other in the workshop, with thehelp of ALP Cards. In this way, they would be able to imagine how to apply the patterns intheir own classrooms. Even if there are some patterns which have never been experienced
by anyone in the workshop, teachers can at least read the ALP Booklet to discuss how to
introduce these patterns to their own school environment.

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Active Learning Patterns for Teachers

Students seem to be not very interested in thelesson.
 In this context

Collaborative Improvement
It is not just teachers,
who can design the class

They might be not satisfied with the way the classis organized, and therefore do not actively participate in the class activities. Teachers who sensed
such atmosphere in class tend to be distracted
and become unable to concentrate on the lecture.
The situation gets even worse if you try to solve it
in a strange way, such as scolding.
 Therefore
Tell your students honestly about your feelings
and struggles in the class, ask for their opinions,and discuss with them to improve the class. You
should first state that you want to improve thesituation at the moment, ask students what they
think about the problem, and then make time to
discuss it with students. For example, if you are
not sure whether your teaching plan is appropriate for your students or not, you should directly ask
for their opinions to find the best way to proceed.
 As a result
Participating in the discussion to improve theirown learning environment will not only improve
the quality of class itself, but will also become agood experience for students. In addition, thefact that teachers and students know each other
well, will enable both of them to be more relaxed
and concentrate on the lectures. This attitude ofteachers who are trying to improve the class withstudents, is very important to earn their trust andcreate a collaborative relationship with them.

Figure 11: Pattern Description of the ALP Booklet

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Figure 12:Utilising Process with ALP Assessment, Booklet and Cards
Figure 13 and 14 show actual applications of Active Learning Patterns for Teachers in the
training session of teachers in a Japanese high school. Figure 15 shows the workshop carried out in an educational conference in Japan. Upper photos are from the workshop in
which the participants walked around the room to talk with someone else to share theirown experiences, and lower photos are from the Dialogue Workshop with ALP Cards.
We got the following feedback from the ALP users. These responses were obtained in Japanese, summarized, and translated into English for this paper.
»» It became much easier to have a dialogue with others because all the important tips areclearly stated.
»» Patterns are very effective to evaluate my own way of teaching and learn from others
through a dialogue.
»» I could think, talk, and ask about things I was not aware of.
»» I became confident with my way of teaching, as I could get some positive feedback fromothers.
»» The dialogue with others brought me some new discoveries and opened ways to challenge myself.

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Active Learning Patterns for Teachers»» I learned some tips in the ALP training, and could apply them to the actual teaching plan.
»» The feedback I got from other teachers on my teaching style showed me some new
aspects of the ALP.
»» We used ALP Cards in the meeting and were able to identify some problems in our
school.

Figure 13: Training session for Teachers in Yaeyama Highschool (Okinawa, Japan)

Figure 14: Training session for Teachers in Seigakuin Junior & Senior Highschool (Tokyo, Japan)

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PURPLSOC 2017: A comprehensive perspective of current pattern research and practice

Figure 15: Dialogue workshop in an educational conference (Kanagawa, Japan)

6. Conclusion
In this paper, we have presented the Active Learning Patterns for Teachers, which describe
the best practices of teachers who support the students to become active learners. The
pattern language was created from scratch based on the Mining Dialogue with teachersin Japan. There are, however, many patterns proposed as Pedagogical Patterns or Educational Patterns in the pattern conferences, for example, Bergin, et al. (2015), Köppe &Schalken-Pinkster (2013), Köppe & Portier (2014), Köppe, C., et al. (2015a, 2015b, 2015c),
Pedagogical Patterns Editorial Board (2012). We need to compare and clarify the similarities
and differences between them in our future work.
Furthermore, we created many patterns for learners, in addition to the pattern language
for teachers presented in this paper: specifically, Learning Patterns (Iba & Iba Lab, 2014a),
Presentation Patterns (Iba & Iba Lab, 2014b) and Collaboration Patterns (Iba & Iba Lab,
2014c). There should be many connections between patterns for learners and patterns forteachers, which will also be the focus of our future work.
Finally, although the introduction and application of this pattern language to the actual
teaching environments is still in the first stage, we have started distributing it to teachers forfree. We are also planning some events for teachers to experience different ways of utilizing
this pattern language. Through these activities, we expect teachers to make effective use ofthis pattern language in their daily practice in the classroom and for better communication
with their colleagues, in order to enable the bigger improvements in the current educational systems.

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7. Acknowledgement
We would like to thank the project members from CreativeShift Inc. and Benesse Corporation. We would also like to thank our interviewees. We would like to express our gratitude to
Konomi Munakata for translating patterns into English and supporting to write this paper.

8. References
Bergin, J., Kohls, C., Köppe, C., Mor, Y., Portier, M., Schümmer, T., & Warburton, S. (2015).
Assessment-driven course design foundational patterns. In Proceedings of the 20th European Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs. ACM, New York, NY, USA,, Article 31,
13 pages.
Iba, T. and Iba Laboratory (2014a) Learning Patterns: A Pattern Language for Creative Learning, CreativeShift.
Iba, T. and Iba Laboratory (2014b) Presentation Patterns: A Pattern Language for Creative
Presentations, CreativeShift.
Iba, T. and Iba Laboratory (2014c) Collaboration Patterns: A Pattern Language for Creative
Collaborations, CreativeShift.
Iba, T. and Isaku, T. (2016) ‘A pattern language for creating pattern languages: 364 patterns
for pattern mining, writing and symbolizing’, In Proceedings of the 2016 Conference on
Pattern Languages of Programs.
Kawakita, J. (1967) HassouHou [The Abduction Method: For Creativity Development], inJapanese, Chuo-Koron.
Köppe, C., & Schalken-Pinkster, J. (2013). Lecture design patterns: improving interactivity.
In Proceedings of the 20th Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs (PLoP ‘13). The
Hillside Group,, USA,, Article 23, 15 pages.
Köppe, C., & Portier, M. (2014). Lecture design patterns: improving the beginning of a lecture. In Proceedings of the 19th European Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs(EuroPLoP ‘14). ACM, New York, NY, USA,, Article 16, 12 pages.
Köppe, C., Eekelen, M.v., & Hoppenbrouwers, S. (2015a). Improving student group work withcollaboration patterns: a case study. In Proceedings of the 37th International Conference on

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PURPLSOC 2017: A comprehensive perspective of current pattern research and practiceSoftware Engineering - Volume 2 (ICSE ‘15), Vol. 2. IEEE Press, Piscataway, NJ, USA, 303–306.
Köppe, C. & Schalken-Pinkster, J. (2015b). Lecture design patterns: laying the foundation.
In Proceedings of the 18th European Conference on Pattern Languages of Program (EuroPLoP ‘13). ACM, New York, NY, USA,, Article 4, 27 pages.
Köppe, C., Niels, R., Holwerda, R., Tijsma, L., Diepen, N.V., Turnhout, K.,V., & Bakker, R. (2015).
Flipped classroom patterns: designing valuable in-class meetings. In Proceedings–of the20th European Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs (EuroPLoP ‘15). ACM, New
York, NY, USA,, Article 26, 17 pages.
Köppe, C., Portier, M., Bakker, R., & Hoppenbrouwers, S. (2015c). Lecture design patterns:
more interactivity improvement patterns. In Proceedings of the 22nd Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs (PLoP ‘15). The Hillside Group, USA, Article 24, 13 pages.
Pedagogical Patterns Editorial Board (2012) Pedagogical Patterns: Advice For Educators,
Createspace.

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We thank the following for their kind support inreviewing the contributions for this book:
Artemis Anniou
Peter BaumgartnerAnne Dörner
Tomoki Furukawazono
Tina Gruber-Mücke
Takashi Iba
Susan Ingham
Taichi Isaku
Hajo Neis
Ana Pinto
Richard Sickinger
Wolfgang Stark
Anne Stieger
Stefan Tewes
Christina Weber766

We live in a time of social and cultural change.
Old patterns are losing their validity and relevance new patterns areneeded and in demand.
We need a new approach which can formulate, generate and engage
such patterns.
The pattern language approach of Christopher Alexander serves thispurpose - the interdisciplinary and participatory building blocks forsocietal change.
The PURPLSOC 2017 conference contributions cover 25 domains from anthropology and automation to political science and systems
science - for a comprehensive perspective of current pattern
research and practice.
www.purplsoc.org