Engaging Students through Active Learning – Mark Uebel

Student needs:   

• Learning to work with others through solving management issues.   

• Gaining mastery of material by helping others learn.   

• Communicating in face-to-face interactions after the COVID shutdown   

Through active learning students learn basic problem-solving strategies and share ideas in solving management problems. Activities reinforce the concepts being studied as they learn to support each other and effectively communicate. The instructor develops an activity for each class session. Students develop their answers and the instructor shares their work while encouraging other groups to build on the original work. Some groups gel quickly while others take more time. Groups that have chronic non-attending members struggle. Five or six members is optimal. Average students become better students and good students become even better. Students feel more compelled to attend and depend on each other. Students share their work through Google docs. Not all classrooms are physically and technologically optimal. While Canvas and TopHat are useful, flip charts and dry erase boards also work. Classrooms with moveable desks are preferable, however with some creativity it has been successful in rooms with theater seating.