CMU School of Drama


Friday, August 29, 2014

Tech Basics for Active, Collaborative Learning

Campus Technology: Classrooms designed for active and collaborative learning are transforming the teaching and learning experience for students and faculty. While every active-learning classroom is unique — based on the physical space itself and the needs of students and faculty — there are features common to many of them. Typically, the instructor has a podium at the center of the room. Surrounding the podium are large, round tables that each seat six to nine students. Movable chairs allow students to easily shift between small groups of three to larger groups of six or nine. Each student table may have its own large display or interactive whiteboard for collaborative work and sharing, and many of the rooms also feature writable walls, where students can collaborate on virtually any vertical surface in the room.

1 comment:

Cathy Schwartz said...

I wonder if this style of teaching would also be useful with younger children. I also wonder if this style of teaching is conducive to all subjects, or if it works better in, say, humanities than it does in the sciences or in math. This might actually be a very useful way to teach math, as it can help those students who have trouble get help not only from their teachers but from their peer, which helps their peers make sure they know the material as well as they explain things. If so, this method might be a great way to increase interest in the STEM fields, something America is sorely lacking. Anything which would increase children’s interest in STEM fields can only be a good thing, and as can be seen in museums, interactive methods of distributing information tend to catch children’s attention better than just being lectured at.