Five Active Learning Strategies



Here's the big question I ask myself when I'm planning a new lesson or activity for my students: will it allow each one to be an active learner or just a "passer-by"? If the activity will not provide opportunities for everyone of them to engage in the learning, I go back to the drawing board.

When I say active and engaged, I'm not just talking about activities that get them up and moving around my room (although I do love those); I'm referring to ones that require all students to think, rather than passively absorb - or ignore - information.


So here are five things I try to include in my lessons and activities to make it more likely that my students aren't just "passing by" the learning:

1. Critical Thinking Activities
When I was a student, and even in the first part of my career, English class was all about chapter questions. We would read a section of the novel or play and the teacher would provide us with questions that focused on important elements of the text.  The problem with this approach is the onus is on the teacher to do all of the heavy thinking; by providing guiding questions, teachers are telling students what is important and what they need to think about. This might seem like the right thing to do, but it relieves the student of the responsibility of figuring things out for themselves. 


Five active learning strategies for middle or high school English class. Room 213 shares strategies for lessons that involve critical thinking, discussion, collaboration, movement and creativity.

So, how can we get kids more actively engaged in a text? My favourite strategy puts the responsibility on them to decide what is important and worthy of discussion. After they've read a short text or a section of a longer one, I ask each student to choose five elements from the text that they believe are most important to understand the story. Then, they work in groups to come to a consensus on these five elements. Once they do, they find evidence to support their choices, choices they will have to defend when we have a full class discussion. I love this activity because the kids are forced to take a close look at the text without me showing them where to look. It takes a bit of training and modelling the first few times you do it, but once the students get a handle on it, the discussions about text become very rich.

Grab this free organizer if you'd like to try the activity with your students. I also have several other critical thinking activities that can be used with any text. Check them out here.

2. Discussion
Speaking is a very important component of active learning, so I build in opportunities for discussion in every lesson, whether it's sharing with a partner, a group or the whole class. If I want students to explore an idea, we begin with individual reflections or brainstorms, so everyone has to think and engage before we discuss. Then, I use a variety of strategies to attempt to engage all students, not just the keen ones.


Five active learning strategies for middle or high school English class. Room 213 shares strategies for lessons that involve critical thinking, discussion, collaboration, movement and creativity.

There are many ways we can get our kids talking, from chat stations to Socratic seminars to formal debates, but some of the richest talk I've ever heard among students comes from daily chats and informal discussions. Unless you have a special group of kids, though, these don't always happen without some guidance from the teacher. If you'd like some ideas for facilitating meaningful class discussions, grab this freebie.


Five active learning strategies for middle or high school English class. Room 213 shares strategies for lessons that involve critical thinking, discussion, collaboration, movement and creativity.
3.Collaboration
When students work together to figure out a complex text or a problem, deep learning can occur. When students are taught how to listen to and question each other, they learn skills that they can use long after they leave our classrooms. 

For these reasons, collaborative work is a staple in my classroom. My go-to activity involves chart paper, sticky notes and markers because it can be applied to so many situations. I simply assign kids a critical thinking task, give them their stickies and markers and let them go to it. 

I use this strategy a lot because it allows students to see their thought processes. For example, last week we were working on our first major essay, and I wanted my students to create an outline before they began. I also wanted them to work on idea development and organization, so I created a group activity that would give them some practice and a better understanding of the outlining process. I projected the thesis: smoking is a terrible habit on the screen and had them brainstorm topic sentences. Each group was assigned one and given chart paper and markers. They brainstormed ideas to support their topic sentences and then we did a quick gallery walk to get some more details on each paper. Finally, a rep from each group came to the front of the room to hold their chart paper or potential "paragraph."  



First, we discussed whether or not each paragraph should go into the "essay" we were planning. We decided to omit the one on the cost of smoking because it didn't really fit with the other points. Then, we debated the best order to present the others. For example, should smoking can kill you go last, or should smoking can harm those around you be the final pointWe had a great discussion about the merits of each and physically moved the paragraphs around as we did so the kids could see the organization. In the end, the kids had a much better idea of the thinking process that should go into outlining an essay because they were actively involved in the outlining process rather than just hearing me drone on about it at the front of the room. You can get the lesson plan here.


Five active learning strategies for middle or high school English class. Room 213 shares strategies for lessons that involve critical thinking, discussion, collaboration, movement and creativity.

I use chart paper, markers and stickies in a variety of ways to engage my students in active learning. For example, I might ask them to come up with a title that captures the essence of a chapter. They would write the title on the chart paper and then list examples and quotations that would illustrate why their chosen title is a good one. If they are working on showing rather than telling in their writing, I write phrases on the top of each paper and have them brainstorm descriptive details to bring each phrase to life. All of these activities can be turned into a gallery walk, with each new group adding more detail to the info on the chart paper with sticky notes. You can grab over thirty of these activities right here.

4. Movement
In my classroom I like to get the bodies active along with the brains, so I work to find ways to get them moving at some point in each class. Seventy-five minutes is a long time to sit still, so even if I don't have an activity that requires students to move, I'll stop half-way through class and ask them to stand up to share something they've written or to discuss I question I pose. 

I use a lot of learning stations to get my students moving, but sometimes, I just put questions or quotes on the wall. Instead of working at their desks, students "go to the wall" to work. The pictures below illustrate an activity I did last week. My IB students needed to do some quotation analysis, so rather than giving them a sheet of quotations to work on at their desks, I enlarged them to create posters for the wall. You can read more about this activity here.


Five active learning strategies for middle or high school English class. Room 213 shares strategies for lessons that involve critical thinking, discussion, collaboration, movement and creativity.

There are many easy ways you can get your students up and moving during your class. Check out ten different strategies on this blog post.

5. Creative Assignments 
Five active learning strategies for middle or high school English class. Room 213 shares strategies for lessons that involve critical thinking, discussion, collaboration, movement and creativity.
In the early part of my career I was a bit of an essay snob. Almost all of the writing that happened in my classroom was literary analysis or research. The five paragraph essay reigned supreme. Now, I provide my students with the freedom to write what they want during writing workshop. They still learn to write an essay (although I ask for a multi-paragraph one, rather than five), and we do a fair bit of literary analysis. 

However, I know that many of my students will actively engage with their writing and find their own voice when they have the freedom to experiment with a variety of genres. Some of them need inspiration to stretch their creative muscles and using mentor texts to show them what great writers do is a very effective strategy. Almost daily, I share a short passage that illustrates engaging writing. Usually these passages demonstrate specific skills we're working on, like word choice or sentence fluency. After students identify what makes the piece effective, they use it as a model to create their own. Since I began this practice, I've seen great improvement in my students' skills and their engagement.

Now, instead of only writing literary analysis essays, I give my students opportunities to illustrate their knowledge of literary techniques through creative writing. I also build in more opportunities for creativity with bell ringers and writing prompts, like the one below, or I assign longer creative pieces. For example, the image below is a prompt I use that allows kids to be creative while also illustrating knowledge of their novel. In the one above, students use excerpts from young adult novels as inspiration for their writing.

Five active learning strategies for middle or high school English class. Room 213 shares strategies for lessons that involve critical thinking, discussion, collaboration, movement and creativity.

Now, obviously, I can't include all of these strategies in every lesson I deliver. However, I do attempt to include at least two or three of them each time so that more of my students are actively engaged in what we are doing. 

You can read about other active learning activities I've used in my classroom on these blog posts:

Teaching Students to Find Evidence in Texts
Teaching Research Skills: Active Learning
Collaborative Poetry with "Where I'm From" Poems
Speaking and Listening Workshop

My friends here at the Coffee Shop have lots of active learning activities too. You can check them out here:

Collaborative Bell Ringers, Nouvelle ELA
Discussion Activity: What Would You Do?, Presto Plans
Encourage Creativity in Your Classroom, Tracee Orman
Novel Study Project for Any Text, The Classroom Sparrow
Eight Ways to Get Students Moving, The Daring English Teacher






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