Bristol Institute for Learning and Teaching

With teaching about to start in the new Sloane Robinson Building and all the new active learning spaces, it may be useful to have a quick reflection on how to make the most of these spaces.

Room 4.405, one of the new active learning studios in The Sloane Robinson Building at Temple Quarter.

Be prepared 

Many of us don’t really think about the value of going into the teaching spaces before we teach, but in the case of the new active learning spaces, nothing can beat actually going into the room and feeling the space before you start. You will find there is a lot of technology in these rooms, retractable screens at each table and moveable whiteboards. It is a good idea to think about how you are going to use this. Will you be using shared documents or Padlet’s? How will students access these? The Digital Education Office has more on tools Tools and software | Digital Education Office | University of Bristol. While technology is great, you need to carefully think about how you are going to incorporate it into your practice, and it goes without saying, practice how you are going to use the technology before incorporating it, and make sure it adds value to the learning experience – this may also need some training for students. 

You will also need to consider how you are going to move around in the space – will you have a clicker to change your slides? Or are you happy to move around holding your laptop or tablet? How are you going to make sure you make all your students feel included, even the groups at the back? You can get a better idea of how this will work by spending some time in the room. 

Be transparent 

A valuable framework to consider in all teaching is ‘Transparency in Learning and Teaching’ (TILT) (Winkelmes, 2023). Higher education can be a confusing experience for many students, but if we can clearly outline the purpose of what students are doing highlighting the skills they will gain, what the task entails and the criteria for successful completion, then students are more likely to be successful in the learning process and this goes for how we are working in the active learning spaces.  Remember that these active learning rooms are not only new for you, but will be new for your students. To this end it is a really good idea to collaboratively establish the expectations in the space. Explain how you see the teaching and learning working and why it is important to work in this way.  

When doing group work, allow some time for students to build relationships prior to working in groups – students have said that group work is most effective when they have time to get to know their group members and decide on the best ways of working. It may also be valuable to highlight in your Blackboard units that students may be expected to work in groups and if they have concerns about this to share them with you so you can make the group work as inclusive as possible. 

Be active 

And finally, with the spaces being set up for active learning, it is important to consider how you bring in more active learning in presenting your content. Making your teaching and learning active does not need to take up too much preparation time. O’Neal and Pinder-Grover (2021) provide a spectrum of active learning activities beginning with very simple tasks to more complex ones. Here are a few of my favourites: 

Pause for reflection 

You may be presenting a new concept or theory, you could do this for ten minutes or so and then pause and ask students to just think about or note down what they have understood from what you have said.  They can then briefly share this with each other for a minute or you could ask if there were any questions and then move on, or just leave it at that.  If you wanted to be more directive, you could ask students to do a ‘Minute Paper’ – which is a slight variation of the ‘pause for reflection. Ask students to take a blank sheet of paper and write down what they have taken in for a minute. These are both very inclusive tasks as they give all students a chance to think about what you have just said, it provides space for them to digest the content, without this students may find it challenging to keep up. 

Think-Pair-Share 

This activity connects to the above, but is a great way for students to have the space to think about what they say before they move into a group discussion. So often we disadvantage students if we don’t give them this thinking time. Students can be asked to work on a problem or reflect on something they have read. After working on their own they can then compare their responses with the group before coming to a joint solution. 

Inquiry learning 

This involves more investment in time from students and encapsulates approaches such as case based learning, problem based learning and activities where students have to investigate something and discover the answers for themselves. These kinds of activities work best when they have an authentic purpose. You may ask students to solve a problem or consider a case study to establish the best ways forward. 

The three or four activities above do not involve too much time to prepare, but can engage students effectively and make the learning more motivating for them.  

You can find more on active learning and Temple Quarter in the BILT guides Active Learning | Bristol Institute For Learning and Teaching | University of Bristol and Temple Quarter and Active Learning | Bristol Institute For Learning and Teaching | University of Bristol 

Enjoy working in the active learning spaces and do share any favourite ideas here. 

References 

O’Neal, C., & Pinder-Grover, T. (2021). Introduction to active learning. Centre for Research on Learning and Teaching. 

Winkelmes, M.A., 2023. Introduction to transparency in learning and teaching. Perspectives in Learning, 20(1).