Project Team
Robert Hill, Physics and Astronomy
Laura Ingram, Chemistry
Megan McCarthy, Psychology
Jason Thompson, Centre for Teaching Excellence
(Project timeline: September 2023 - August 2024)
Project Summary
With the recent increase in the development and implementation of active-learning activities in our courses, we find ourselves now asking reflective questions: Are the learning activities we design effective? Are students engaging with the activities in the way that is intended by the instructor? How can we improve activities to engage the ‘hard-to-reach’ students?
In this project, we intend to develop a framework for the observation and evaluation of student behaviours during in-class active learning activities. We anticipate that by observing student behavior in our first-year science courses, we will gain valuable insight that will allow us to critically analyze the design of our learning activities so they can be improved to maximize impact. More broadly, across the University of Waterloo, this pilot could provide a framework for assessing student behaviour and inform best-practices for designing active-learning activities that minimize unimpactful behaviours and maximize student learning and skill development.
References
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