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This paper is a case study of active learning, implemented through an action learning program, in a senior undergraduate science unit (EM421/521 Sustainable Land Management) in the Department of Ecosystem Management at the University of New England. In this paper, we reflect upon our second cycle in embracing active learning principles in the unit. The process by which the unit was modified utilised action learning by a team of six academics with support roles filled by two others. Our vision for the unit was to abandon traditional passive teaching techniques and to empower our students to be independent active learners. This paper will reflect upon our experiences in teaching the unit during 1996. We replaced lectures and laboratory sessions with a variety of active learning strategies, such as role-playing, brain storming, de Bono thinking hats and focus groups, in the classroom during 1995. Experience gained over that semester was then used through weekly meetings in the second half of 1995 to build a more cohesive, co-ordinated unit structure which targeted areas upon which we needed to improve, such as integrating external students into the active learning mode. In 1996 we have put the active learning approach into action. Only passing reference will be made to our motivation for change, what we hoped to achieve in the modified course, and the process and material outcomes of change. This paper will concentrate on the evaluation of the learning outcomes of the new approach from the perspective of the internal and external students involved in the course as well as our own views as co-ordinators of the course.
There are three fundamental considerations which underlie the move towards active learning approaches. The first core value is student centredness, the desire of educators to put the student (rather than the lecturer) centre-stage. Student-centred learning seeks to improve learning experiences and outcomes by (Thorley & Gregory 1994) increasing student motivation, encouraging learners to take more decisions about the learning process, valuing and acting on student opinions of the learning process, and producing life-long learners by encouraging students to become independent, autonomous and responsible for their own learning needs.
The second focus of many innovative teaching approaches is collaborative learning (interactive learning in groups). Collaborative learning is important due to rapid changes in the workplace which emphasise the ability of people to be adaptable, to work collaboratively and to learn through work-related experiences. Working in groups enables students to: learn more about themselves and their interpersonal skills, clarify their thinking and learning through discussion and explanation, and to think more critically (Rudduck 1978; Gregory & Thorley 1994; Tribe 1994). Peer tutoring and feedback can be a powerful learning experience and exposes students to a greater range of ideas and understanding on an issue than the traditional learning environment (Rudduck 1978; Gregory & Thorley 1994; Tribe 1994). Working in small groups encourages students to learn a protocol applicable to the discipline such as appropriate language, respect for other people's ideas, and forgoing judgement.
The third focus of active learning approach is experiential learning and the fact that people learn more through experience than by instruction. Experiential learning arises from a cycle of actions and thoughtful reflection - the experiential learning cycle of Kolb (1984):
doing --> reviewing --> theorising --> planningReflection is an important part of experiential learning, whereby the lessons of experience are dissected, analysed, evaluated, reinterpreted, extended and ultimately consolidated. Reflection takes place over time and assists in formulating, clarifying, evaluating and reframing thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and beliefs in the light of experience and learning (Ballantyne & Packer 1995).
Sustainable Land Management (EM421/521) is a fourth year mandatory unit as part of the Natural Resources Degree Program. In traditionally taught university courses the emphasis is on content, and little thought is given to the development of a set of values, attitudes and skills appropriate to the workplace or student participation. In the area of sustainable land management there is a strong need for graduates who have the ability to work co-operatively in seeking information, planning and managing programs to solve problems and to facilitate community groups in their search for land management problems. Because the concept of sustainable land management is complex and qualitative and can be viewed from a wide range of perspectives, it is also important to incorporate into the course the potential wealth of perspectives, skills, experiences and knowledge that the students have to offer. Any emphasis on content alone is deemed inappropriate in this course, since the information base is quickly changing and expanding at a rapid rate. Also solutions to land management problems tend to be context-specific and transitory, and descriptions of case histories of sustainable land management, do not, of themselves, afford students a realistic framework or relevant models with which to confront actual land management problems in the field. Another reason for change from lectures to active learning strategies is the low retention rates for student learning through traditional lectures (Table 1). Similarly, end-of-unit examinations are relatively useless for facilitating student learning, because they encouraged students to 'cram', regurgitate and forget over a period of two to three days. The vocational relevance of examinations as a learning process that could be applied in the workplace is considered minimal.
| Students retain | |
| 10% | of what they read |
| 26% | of what they hear |
| 30% | of what they see |
| 50% | of what they see and hear |
| 70% | of what they say |
| 90% | of what they say as they do something |
As a result of the above considerations, Lobry de Bruyn, Reid and Daniels worked together to implement a number of changes to EM421/521 in 1995, as described by Daniels et al. (1995). The present project learnt from, and built on, the modifications made in 1995.
Objectives of the project were:
Classroom activities were arranged into 18 morning classes of 2 hrs each, between weeks 1 and 11 on a 13 week semester, with a week off in week 8 to enable students to prepare for poster and practical presentations. Use of large free-format teaching rooms with a capacity for 60 people in the Education building was obtained to facilitate classroom learning. Student numbers internally were 37 and externally 25.
Because of the lack of emphasis on collaborative learning in the Natural Resources program, the team decided that internal students needed a workshop at the beginning of the unit to sell the importance of the novel learning approaches in the unit, to introduce students to group theory, extension theory, program planning and reflection, to serve as a team-building exercise for the semester-long groups, and to practice three group learning approaches: (1) brainstorming in focus groups, (2) SWOC (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Constraints) analysis, and (3) a group reflection technique (ORID - Observation, Reflection, Interpretation, Decisions). The workshop was held on the weekend at the end of Orientation Week at Newholme. Whilst at Newholme, the opportunity was also taken to introduce students to a variety of field-based techniques for monitoring soil, water, pasture and woody vegetation condition, in preparation for the field practical component.
| CONTENT | |
| A. Introduction | Introduction to unit Personal and community values |
| B. Management | Matters of context for land management Nature of management Farmer heterogeneity |
| C. Sustainability | Issues: dimensions and scale Sustainability principles Characteristics of sustainable systems Who's responsible? |
| D. Barriers to Sustainability | Barriers Barriers from a stakeholder perspective |
| E. Economic and Technical Solutions | Economic solutions Technical solutions Identifying problems and evaluating solutions Holistic solutions |
| F. Social and Political Solutions | Senate Inquiry into Sustainable Land Management |
| SKILLS OBJECTIVES | |
| Capacity for critical thought | |
| Self-directed learning (learning how best to learn searching for knowledge for themselves) | |
| Planning skills Development of capacity for reflection Verbal and written skills for effective communication Responding to questions Team-building skills for effective teams Active listening Conflict resolution Design and installation of a system for monitoring farm sustainability Collection of soil, water, pasture and woody vegetation data Analysis, interpretation and communication of land management monitoring data | |
| ATTITUDES | |
| Be open to new ideas Show initiative in class Be creative and innovative in field Be prepared to share ignorance constructively Be prepared to reflect on unit learning objectives Be (positively) critical Be enthusiastic and get involved View lecturers as facilitators for student learning Be courteous and thoughtful with landholders | |
Assessment was designed to be continuous to provide continuing feedback to students about their progress in the unit. The assessment schedule indicating tasks and marks allocated in shown in Table 3.
| Assessment Task | % | Due Date | |||
| Reflection Questions | |||||
| Individual Reflections, Class 1-2 | 5% | 28 Feb | |||
| Individual Reflections, Class 3-9 | 7% | 22 Mar | |||
| Reflection Questions, Class 10-18 | 8% | 27 May | |||
| Resource Book Test (take home) | 5% | 1 Mar | |||
| Assignment: The Concept and Challenge of SLM | |||||
| First Draft | 10% | 4 Mar | |||
| Assignment - Final Draft | 5% | 29 Mar | |||
| Poster Presentation[1] | |||||
| Evaluation of a Land Management Solution | 10% | 8 May | |||
| Senate Inquiry Presentations[1] | 10% | 15-22 May | |||
| Lecturer evaluation | (5%) | ||||
| Peer evaluation | (5%) | ||||
| Grazier Presentation of Farm Monitoring or Property Planning Program | 40% | 3-7 Jun | |||
| Written report | (15%) | ||||
| Peer assessment | (7.5%)[2] | ||||
| Group mark | (9.5%)[2] | ||||
| Individual mark | (8%)[2] | ||||
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Reflection questions were prepared for each class and were designed variously to encourage students to consolidate and extend their understanding, to think about learning approaches, or to reflect on issues, attitudes or skills in relation to their professional development or careers. The Study Guide for external students was based on the classroom activities for internal students, although the collaborative learning approaches were necessarily modified. Choice was introduced by providing external students with the full range of learning materials on offer to internal students and allowing external students to work through those of their choosing. The Study Guide was written in a more personal, interactive style in order to engage the interest and attention of external students. The Residential School program for external students was substantially modified to permit time for the poster presentation and Senate Inquiry, and an afternoon bus trip to view a variety of land management problems and best practice solutions in the Armidale region. The farm monitoring program was reduced to 1.5 days in 1996.
There is strong support for the new learning style with a small proportion of internal students still preferring the traditional approach to learning via lectures and laboratories. However Figure 1 also indicates that students (both internal and external) feel they may not be getting enough content or content of an appropriate sort via classroom activities or the Study Guide.
Figure 1: Response of internal (1st and 3rd columns) and external (2nd and 4th columns) students to the questions on had they learnt as much content as they would have liked in relation to land management and sustainability?About 70% of internal and external students felt the course had affected their attitudes to understanding and solving land management problems. In Figure 2 the ways in which their attitudes have changed is shown. For the internal students the change in attitudes has been largely through interacting with fellow students which has led to a broadening of their views and a realisation of the need to learn how to solve complex problems. For the external students their change in attitudes occurred via the Study Guide. When asked - What are the positive aspects of the Study Guide? - 71% of students commented on the content and in their words the Study Guide contained a relevant, comprehensive, topical, diverse, broad and detailed information base (71% of students), while the remaining students highlighted the importance of the questions.
Figure 2: Combined internal and external students' response to the question - In what way have your attitudes to understanding and solving land management problems changed as a result of this unit?Another encouraging response is that 80% of internal students feel that this unit has helped them feel more comfortable about presenting in class than other units and 16% identify increased confidence as a result of classroom activities (Figure 3). This is pleasing as one of our goals is to empower students to be confident learners and thinkers.
Figure 3: Internal student response to the question - What are the positive and negative aspects of classroom activities in relation to your learning experience in this unit?Figure 3 shows that this unit has exposed internal students to the value of the working in teams; 75% of internal students specifically identify this as a positive aspect of the course. Despite time constraints, the practical program is considered relevant and realistic (41% of internal students) and internal students thinks they are learning a lot (37%) (Figure 4).
Figure 4: Internal student response to the questions - What are the positive and negative aspects of the practical program in relation to your learning experience in this unit?The external students received nearly all of their course content via worksheets which were placed in the Study Guide. We found that worksheets were not an effective learning strategy for conveying content. The majority of the external students suggested that there was too much information (46%) in the Study Guide, while the remainder indicated that there was too much reading (12%), the font size was too small and hence difficult to read (12%), and working through the worksheets was time consuming (12%). The internal students had similar reservations about worksheets/jigsaws and suggested we reduce the amount of reading (42%) in the worksheets and make the questions more relevant (24%). In retrospect, a diversity of content learning strategies are required as well as an introduction to worksheets and more emphasis on the skills required to extract information from them. The inability of students to extract relevant information from many worksheets suggests that we overrated their research and analytical skills.
Figures 3 and 4 also emphasise the importance of interpersonal skills in group work. A substantial proportion of the class (28% of students) is experiencing group dysfunction in some way (Figure 4). Interpersonal conflict can have a marked effect on classroom and field activities and can affect student motivation negatively. Nearly half of the students (44%) identify that lack of motivation can be a negative aspect of group classroom activities (Figure 3).
Even though Figures 3 and 4 indicate there is a need to enhance students' ability to resolve conflict and motivate their groups, a consistently high level of individual student motivation was recorded between weeks 4 to 6, about one to two thirds of the way through the unit (Figure 5). During this period, the average level of student motivation in classroom activities was interested (53%), keen (32%) and apathetic (15%).
Figure 5: The level of internal student involvement in classes 7 to 12 over weeks 4 to 6 (number of students surveyed ranges from 23 to 32)
Another major resolution which came out of this experience with active learning is to incorporate the learning strategy in other Ecosystem Management units, and eventually throughout the Natural Resources degree program. For this to occur there is a need for more free-form large classrooms with the capacity to seat 60 students, as well as university lecturers who are prepared to share their ignorance and knowledge.
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| Authors: Lisa Lobry de Bruyn and Nick Reid, Department of Ecosystem Management David Daniels, Department of Curriculum Studies University of New England, Armidale NSW 2351 Please cite as: Lobry de Bruyn, L., Reid, N. and Daniels, D. (1996). Reflections on the application of active learning principles and innovative teaching techniques in tertiary education. Different Approaches: Theory and Practice in Higher Education. Proceedings HERDSA Conference 1996. Perth, Western Australia, 8-12 July. http://www.herdsa.org.au/confs/1996/lobrydebruyn.html |