Active Learning Book

Faculty experiences in active learning: A collection of strategies for implementing active learning across disciplines, a book authored by 24 faculty and administrators, works to ignite a culture of active learning in higher education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. UNC Charlotte has been working to become a national leader in active learning transformation since 2014. The University promotes the use of active learning pedagogy through a faculty community of practice called the Active Learning Academy and provides supporting spaces for active learning through construction and renovations of classrooms to be active learning centers. This book, authored by Active Learning Academy members, was written for higher education faculty and students planning to teach at the post-secondary level and is a guide for considering the diverse pathways that active learning can take based on student population, approach, discipline, and learning environment.

The chapters in this book cover a range of topics on active learning: implementing logistics and strategies for getting started with active learning methods, using flipped classroom models, evaluating student engagement, addressing accessibility in active learning classrooms, and experimenting with adaptive academic technologies. Design patterns for planning active learning engagement in your classroom are provided along with examples of pitfalls that can occur with each activity and best practices for using activities successfully.

Editors

Jules A. Keith-Le, MFA is an instructional design and academic technology professional with the UNC Charlotte Center for Teaching and Learning. She has over 20 years of experience in education and the arts, both in the public and private sectors. She facilitates the faculty learning community on campus for active learning. She was awarded the Steelcase Education Active Learning Center Grant in 2019 to build active learning classrooms and research student engagement at UNC Charlotte. Her other research interests include non-traditional higher education populations, gendered negotiation, and faculty development.

Dr. Meg Morgan has been a member of the UNC Charlotte faculty since fall 1987, worked in the Department of English and retired in 2016. While there, she received three teaching awards, administered several academic programs, taught a range of writing classes, worked for education at local, state, and national levels, and wrote or edited several books. Teaching has been her passion for almost 50 years, and she continues to teach one course a year in English and to work for the UNC Charlotte Center for Teaching and Learning.

Authors

• Foreword
  J. Garvey Pyke

• Introduction
  Jules A. Keith-Le, Heather McCullough, Rich Preville, and Kurt Richter

• Chapter 1: Logistics of active learning
  Tonya Bates, Nicole Spoor, Pilar Zuber, and Stephanie Stewart

• Chapter 2: Strategies to incorporate active learning practice in introductory courses
  Mohsen Dorodchi, Laurel Powell, Nasrin Dehbozorgi, and Aileen Benedict

• Chapter 3: A fully-flipped active learning course
  Celine Latulipe

• Chapter 4: Converting a traditional class to active learning
  Molly Redmond and Celine Latulipe

• Chapter 5: POGIL learning cycle as a model for active learning
  Kathy Asala

• Chapter 6: Addressing access in active learning
  Donna Sacco, Molly Redmond, and Celine Latulipe

• Chapter 7: A learning analytics approach to assessing student risk in active learning
  Mohsen Dorodchi, Mohammad J. Mahzoon, Mary Lour Maher, and Aileen Benedict

• Chapter 8: A model for mentoring faculty and teaching assistants in active learning
  Celine Latuilpe and Stephen MacNeil

• Chapter 9: Active learning beyond the classroom: Community-engaged learning case studies
  Colleen Hammelman, Tina Katsanos, and Beth Auten

• Chapter 10: Design patterns for active learning
  Mary Lou Maher, Nasrin Dehbozorgi, Mohsen Dorodchi, and Stephen MacNeil