Active Learning CoP #7 - Theme: Student engagement for learning retention
25th of April 2024 | 10am - 12pm | Online
To attend the session please join our Active Learning CoP or book through our booking system.
Guest speaker session: Using Active Cognitive Tasks to promote active learning (90 min)
As part of the Active Learning Community of Practice, we have Mary Jacob, Aberystwyth University, joining us to talk about Active Cognitive Tasks (ACT). Active learning can help students engage with learning tasks, promote deeper learning, and foster higher order thinking. The result can be better retention of learning.
Many lecturers wonder what we can do besides ‘deliver content’. This session builds on a chapter in a 2023 SEDA Focus book about active learning. Synthesising early definitions and current research on active learning, I’ve come to consider active learning to be any activity where students carry out a thinking task, what I refer to as an Active Cognitive Task (ACT). It is not the content itself but what students do with it that matters.
During this interactive session, we will begin with some of your real learning outcomes and redesign as needed to make them task-based. After that, you will work in small groups to brainstorm ideas for ACTs that support your chosen learning outcome.
Biography: Mary Jacob is a lecturer at Aberystwyth University, leading the Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching in Higher Education (PGCTHE) as part of the Learning & Teaching Enhancement Unit. She serves as coordinator of the Gen AI Working Group supporting staff and students in using AI effectively and ethically. She curates the Weekly Resource Roundup of events and publications about learning and teaching. She holds SFSEDA, SFHEA, PGCTHE, and CMALT and posts on X.com as Mary Jacob L&T. As a member of the Active Learning Network, she is an advocate of active learning.
AL CoP session (30min)
For the last part of the session, there will be an opportunity for participants to further share their experiences and challenges around this theme through an open discussion.
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