Posted by Malcolm Campbell
How do people learn? What is the best way to retain information? A study led by Daniel Udovic at the University of Oregon (see Udovic et al., 2002) compared two introductory biology courses: one was an active-learning course where students constructed their own knowledge, and the other was a traditionally taught lecture course. Udovic and his colleagues measured the mean percentage change in a pretest versus a posttest for each of the two courses (see Figure 1 in original paper). The test covered basic concepts in evolution, natural selection, ecosystems, communities, and populations. Class sizes were 61 for the active learning course and 62 for the traditional course.
Udovic’s results are supported by other studies, as well as a meta-analysis of active learning studies (see Freeman et al., 2014) Years of research has shown how people learn best:
These insights and findings are not new; thousands of years ago, a ancient Chinese Confucian philosopher is credited with this educational advice: “Tell me and I'll forget. Show me and I'll remember. Involve me and I'll understand.” Active learning allows students to construct their own knowledge, which enhances acquisition and retention of information and concepts. Prior knowledge and interest are leveraged through Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications readings in each chapter of our book. ICB enables students to achieve their full learning potential by helping them control their own education and encouraging them to “discover” content and concepts for themselves by analyzing real data in the context of thought-provoking research questions.
ICB encourages students to construct their own knowledge using published figures and tables. The data are from peer-reviewed scientific research as they appeared in the original publications. In traditional textbooks, the words are presented as fact, and figures are used merely to illustrate the words. ICB uses figures to supply the facts while words help students extract the essential elements from the experimental data. In short, students will construct their own knowledge so that they can learn and retain the information. As they gain knowledge in biology, students will find that they can learn more and retain new information more easily.
ICB uses case studies as context to help students connect to the new information. Teachers can reinforce major concepts by covering fewer examples in more depth so that students can spend more time learning and less time memorizing. ICB guides students in interpretation and analysis, and will help them contextualize their new knowledge into a framework that we call the five Big Ideas. The ready-to-use PowerPoint files make it easy for teachers to implement this approach to learning in your everyday classroom sessions.
Udovic’s results are supported by other studies, as well as a meta-analysis of active learning studies (see Freeman et al., 2014) Years of research has shown how people learn best:
- people learn best if they are actively engaged in constructing their own knowledge,
- people retain information better when new material is directly related to information they already know through previous study or their world experience,
- comprehension is greater when people are interested in the material.
These insights and findings are not new; thousands of years ago, a ancient Chinese Confucian philosopher is credited with this educational advice: “Tell me and I'll forget. Show me and I'll remember. Involve me and I'll understand.” Active learning allows students to construct their own knowledge, which enhances acquisition and retention of information and concepts. Prior knowledge and interest are leveraged through Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications readings in each chapter of our book. ICB enables students to achieve their full learning potential by helping them control their own education and encouraging them to “discover” content and concepts for themselves by analyzing real data in the context of thought-provoking research questions.
ICB encourages students to construct their own knowledge using published figures and tables. The data are from peer-reviewed scientific research as they appeared in the original publications. In traditional textbooks, the words are presented as fact, and figures are used merely to illustrate the words. ICB uses figures to supply the facts while words help students extract the essential elements from the experimental data. In short, students will construct their own knowledge so that they can learn and retain the information. As they gain knowledge in biology, students will find that they can learn more and retain new information more easily.
ICB uses case studies as context to help students connect to the new information. Teachers can reinforce major concepts by covering fewer examples in more depth so that students can spend more time learning and less time memorizing. ICB guides students in interpretation and analysis, and will help them contextualize their new knowledge into a framework that we call the five Big Ideas. The ready-to-use PowerPoint files make it easy for teachers to implement this approach to learning in your everyday classroom sessions.
