Active Learning
You may well be familiar with the term ‘active learning’, which contrasts with ‘passive learning’.
According to Stella Cottrell (2019, p. 110) active learning strategies make success more likely:
Characteristics of active learning
- You take the initiative, find things out, and become involved in your own learning
- You are engaged in the whole learning process
- You seek out links between different things you discover
- You make an effort to really understand what you learn
- You reflect upon, and evaluate, your learning to enhance understanding and improvement
- Your ability to focus is greater because you are actively engaged
- You link your new learning to previous findings and make connections
- Learning is personalized and more interesting
- You take control of your own learning and manage it like a project, so you feel confident that you know what to do, when and why
Characteristics of passive learning
- You wait for information to be fed to you
- Information is delivered to you and you just follow
- You do not link different pieces of information together
- You repeat information without understanding it
- You do not reflect upon what you have learnt
- You become bored due to a lack of in-depth engagement
- You are less likely to use what you learn
- What you study may seem irrelevant
- You wait for others to guide you, so you often feel uncertain about what to do next
Cottrell, S. (2019) ‘The Study Skills Handbook’ . London: Red Globe Press.
Happy learning!
Lifelong Learning Hub (Skye and Lochalsh) 