For 800 years, students have sat facing a professor at a podium as the teacher imparts his or her wisdom via lecture. The “sage on stage” model remains a popular form of teaching in large part because that’s the way most of us were taught. But growing research shows that active learning—in which students sit in small groups and actively discuss and problem solve—is far more effective. As part of the University of Wyoming Science Initiative, the core sciences at UW will undergo a teaching transformation, embracing an active learning approach that will touch the vast majority of UW students.
The Science Initiative is led by task force of alumni and industry leaders and an advisory leadership team made up of UW faculty. “At our first leadership team meeting, one of our core principles was that everything we do is all about student success,” says Greg Brown, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and a botany professor who served on both groups as a liaison.
With student success as the guiding principle, embracing active learning makes perfect sense.
“Research shows that when you compare students sitting in a passive classroom where they’re talked to the entire time with students who are seated in an active learning classroom, those students from the passive classroom are 1.5 times more likely to fail the class,” says Mark Lyford, a leadership team member and director of UW’s Life Sciences Program.
“Students are also more likely to come to class,” he continues. “We see that here on campus. You may have 70 percent class attendance, and when you shift to active learning—particularly when students are learning in groups—you go up to 90–95 percent attendance.”
“There are national studies now that show that the No. 1 indicator of graduation is whether or not a student goes to class,” Brown says. “We think the increased attendance will increase retention and graduation rates.” The improved attendance can be attributed to the small group cohort—fellow students you are accountable to and relate to—as well as class being more engaging.
“Because they have a study group, they’re less likely to get discouraged and more likely to complete their assignments,” says Department of Physics and Astronomy Professor Chip Kobulnicky, a leadership team member who teaches a studio-style General Physics I course using active learning principles. “Students are less likely to fail and more likely to complete a college degree. All of these things are about student success. With the Science Initiative, the bottom line is that we want to see student success from the first year on through graduation and into their profession.
“In studio physics, I see improved student performance in terms of a higher pass rate, and student evaluations are higher,” he adds. The positive results from active learning have been well documented via research.
“When you have a class that’s passive, and you do a test at the beginning of the semester and you do the same test at the end of the semester, the students will only fill a quarter of the gap that they came into class with,” says Daniel Dale, head of the Department of Physics and Astronomy and a leadership team member. “If you do active learning, they’ll fill half the gap. That’s a factor of two improvement on what they learn.”
Active learning can take many forms depending on the size of the class, number of students and subject area, but basic principles include breaking students into small groups and having them actively participate via discussion, response and problem solving.
“Active learning will transform entrylevel science education to utilize a form of learning that more students find compatible and agreeable,” Brown says.
“Active learning is more intuitive,” agrees sophomore Logan Jensen of Greybull, Wyo., an astronomy and astrophysics major who took Professor Kobulnicky’s General Physics I course his first semester. “He had the class divided up into four- or five-person groups, and you’d work together with those at your table. Right away, after a short introduction, we’d be thrown into a few example problems to work on in small groups. After we’d done the mathematics behind what we were going to learn, then we got to do a lab and actually see whatever we were learning that day implemented. So you got to do all the aspects of the lesson at once. It makes it something you can see and relate to.”
The class would traditionally be taught with three separate components—lecture, lab and discussion, which Jensen experienced in General Physics II and found more disjointed.
“I thought the active learning approach was a good way to do it for everyone,” he says. “It benefits people who struggle more with learning but also helps the people who are catching on quickly.”
In addition, active learning also benefits underrepresented students. “What you see in studies on active learning is that those who benefit most are the underrepresented students—first-generation, minorities and women,” Lyford says. “Everybody benefits, but who benefit most are those students that frankly are the groups we’ve been losing from the STEM—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—pipeline.
“I also found in my research that students get more interested in the subject,” he continues. “They’re more likely to take another class in the STEM areas.”
Top students also benefit. “Being engaged in their learning, you’re able to push them harder in their critical thinking and problem solving because that’s what you’re doing in class,” Lyford says.
For laboratory classes and studio physics at the freshman and sophomore level, the new Michael B. Enzi STEM Facility will provide customized, state-of-the-art learning spaces.
“I’m very excited to teach in the new Enzi STEM Facility because we’ll have expanded space to do studio physics for up to 56 students,” Kobulnicky says. “Among other features, the room will have white boards around all the walls, where groups can go to work problems together.”
However, current lecture sections in biology, chemistry and physics that serve more than 40 students lack appropriate spaces to hold active learning classes.
“It’s hard to take existing spaces and retrofit them for active learning, particularly tiered lecture halls,” Lyford says. “It’s a lot easier to facilitate when it’s a flexible space and one where students are already seated in groups. In the Science Initiative, we’re proposing four classrooms in the new building (see page 24 for more on the new building). They would complement the Enzi STEM Facility, where we’ve developed new teaching laboratories for undergraduate students.”
Due to lack of space, Lyford teaches his current Life 1003 Current Issues in Biology class in the basement of Washakie Dining Center.
“In the new science building, we’re planning four different-sized classrooms for 200, 150, 100 and 50 students,” he says. “They would be single floor versus tiered, and instead of students facing forward, there would be round tables for nine students each with sub-clusters of three students within that, each with a form of technology, such as a tablet. They’d all have a monitor on the wall.”
This setup will encourage discussion and problem solving in groups, and students and the professor can share things on the monitors. In addition, learning outside of class will be optimized by taking advantage of technology for things like short instructional videos, explanations or animations of concepts, as well as questions and quizzes.
Although many professors across campus already use active learning in various ways, broad-based training is essential for making a successful transition throughout the core sciences.
“My vision is for everyone to get excited about active learning and for a huge number of faculty members to pursue it,” Dale says. “We plan to provide intense and ongoing mentoring for faculty,” Lyford says.
The Science Initiative’s Learning Actively Mentoring Program (LAMP) includes the hiring of two instructional facilitators— one in the physical sciences and one in the life sciences. These individuals will be accomplished in active learning techniques and will train and mentor other faculty, as well as demonstrate active learning in their own classes.
“We are planning weeklong summer institutes, where the mentors will help develop academic programs for faculty members,” Lyford says. “Then, during the course of the year, the mentors will visit the professors’ classrooms to give feedback and ideas.”
There will also be a weekly faculty development program and seminar series, as well as bi-weekly reading series for faculty members and graduate students.
Because graduate students also teach undergraduates, they play a key role in the program. All of the new graduate students and faculty members and most of the existing faculty members in the Science Initiative’s core sciences will be trained in active learning strategies by 2022.
The Science Initiative’s active learning emphasis will also have a transformational impact for College of Education students studying to be K–12 teachers.
“We can help reshape K–12 education in our state by modeling good instruction in our classrooms,” Lyford says. “Every single K–12 pre-service teacher goes through these science classes, so we are planning an undergraduate piece of LAMP, where we will train pre-service teachers in their junior and senior years on active learning and pay them to help facilitate these courses.”
“UW populates most schools in the state with teachers,” Brown says. “This aspect of the Science Initiative will provide a transformation, over time, of how teaching takes place in Wyoming.”
UW will also facilitate a statewide active learning conference in February 2016.
While understanding active learning techniques takes time—as well as creativity to implement—professors using the methods say they wouldn’t go back to lecturing.
“It takes time as an instructor, but it’s more engaging for us too,” Lyford says.
“I love teaching this format,” Kobulnicky agrees. “I’ve been doing it for five years now, and it is more fun for me because I get to be involved in all aspects of the course in a meaningful way that the traditional model doesn’t allow.”
Lyford sums up the many benefits of making the switch to active learning: “Data shows that we can increase student success, we can increase attendance, and we can increase learning comprehension and their ability to think at higher levels. We’ll be producing better students for jobs, graduate school and teaching. It won’t be long before people look to us for core science education.”
