I'm John Kerrigan. I am a math adjunct in the mathematics department at Rutgers
University. I got involved in active learning because of my supervisor
Michael Weingart in the math department. He has worked tirelessly to convert our
Topics in Mathematics for the Liberal Arts course into a course that students want
to take and get something out of rather than viewing it as a graduation
requirement. I think the conventional understanding of what mathematics
teaching and learning looks like in the undergraduate setting is more of a
traditional process where students are passive and take notes off of the board
or try practice problems. But in active learning the instructor creates
opportunities for students to engage with the content, to engage with one
another, and also engage with the instructor. A lot of the literature on
active learning suggests that there should be pausing as much as possible
that you don't want to go for more than, say, 10 or 15 minutes before you pause and
give soon it's an opportunity to reflect on what you taught or have them try
something. So one of the strategies that I use is called "Think-Pair-Share" where
you pose a question, they think about what their answer is going to be, they pair up
and start to share their answers. What did you think? What did you think? I also
utilize peer teaching wherever possible, which is where I empower students to
teach one another using the equipment in the room such as the desktop whiteboards
the wall whiteboards, if they want to use their laptops and work out of a Google Doc
and project it on the screen. I think that the design of the active learning
classroom tables prevent social loafing. The students sit in groups of three
within their bigger group of nine. So when I do give a task it's very
difficult for one of the three students to have no idea what's going on and be
able to survive. So I feel that the students do come a little bit better prepared.
In other college classrooms the teacher is the focal point of the room. In this
type of situation there is no front of the room. My desk is in the middle so I
have to continuously move around the room and be visible to students as much
as I can. I wanted to do it because I felt it would be a challenge in a dense
course like Calculus II where I'm preparing future engineers and math
majors and computer scientists with all of the formulas and the strategies for
manipulating things like integrals and sequences and series.
So I took it as a challenge to take content that's normally pretty dry and
very lecture based and turn it into something more active. I was actually
afraid that this audience wouldn't like that type of instruction because being a
math person or a science person or computer science person, usually those
students are very procedural and want to know the steps and the rules and they
want to just mimic it but I've tried to break away from that style of
instruction and empower students to discover concepts rather than just
passively be told what they are. If someone wants to try active learning I
would highly suggest they get involved in the active learning community and
also stop by at the Digital Classroom Services. I credit a lot of my knowledge
of how to operate the room to them. They offered an active learning boot camp
which I attended. By hearing my colleagues share what they do
in their classes and also by engaging in active activities ourselves in that boot
camp, I felt like a lot of my questions and fears were answered and calmed down
because I got to hear from other people teaching bigger classes how they dealt
with those things. I would highly recommend any instructor to give active
learning a try. It may seem daunting at first, but I really believe it has been a
transformative experience for me. It really is an empowering opportunity for
students and also for the instructor to really get to know your kids beyond just
having them sit in a lecture hall and be recipients of information.