This exercise is particularly useful and revealing to classroom professors rather than to their students. Please do the exercise first and then return to read the rest of this column afterwards. You can ignore this advice, of course, but the effect is stronger if you engage the ideas in the suggested order. Besides, this web page isn't going anywhere....

Pause....

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By far the majority of people who engage in this exercise cite an event that occurred away from home, took place in a pleasing ---even exotic--- environment, involved several people, and had a task clearly established ahead of time. For instance, learning to scuba dive usually involves 6-12 people in a cooperative enterprise, takes place at a nice beach, has extremely clear guidelines for safety and comfort, proceeds at a pace determined largely by the students, and has associated with it a sense of camaraderie, good food, and happy adventure.

If this is what we professors recall as our most memorable learning experiences, why then do we behave as if our students' best learning occurs through book study in isolation following a routine lecture in an uninteresting four-walled classroom? Active Learning invites individuals to take on the role of participant in, rather than mere recipient of, their own education. This exercise makes visible how important this is for really effective learning.

----Thanks to Prof. Emeritus Ernie Schusky, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

Learning in the Active Voice

Think about a concept, lesson, or skill that either you especially enjoyed learning yourself or that you teach particularly well. Perhaps the episode involved scuba diving, skiing, quilting, sign language, a professional meeting in your discipline, or a memorable seminar. Picture the environment, setting, people involved, presentation, interaction between teacher and student(s), and outcome. With that successful experience in mind, take about five minutes to answer the following questions. As you write, think about how you might explain your example in less than three minutes to a small group of friendly colleagues.

1. What specific class, meeting, seminar, or event produced your example?
   
   
2. What exactly was being taught?
   (What was the teaching goal or objective?)
   
   
3. Describe the environment and setting.
   (When and where did the event occur? To what extent did the setting contribute to success?)
   
   
4. How was the material actually presented?
   (What was actually done, how was it done, and why is it interpreted as successful?)
   
   
5. How did the instructor know whether students had learned the material to the expected level of performance? How did the students know?
   (How was achievement tested/evaluated/ assessed and measured against the goal?)
   
   
6. What did you learn as a teaching professor from this experience?
   (Why does this particular example stand out in your memory?)
   
   
7. Is there a "big lesson" here or a general principle about effective teaching and learning that your example illustrates? Can you summarize it?
   (How would you explain this insight to a new professor who is not in your discipline?)