Dr Paul White and Dr Ian Larson
are leading an education
revolution at Parkville.
IL: Active learning emphasises critical thinking and
analysis. Everything we get students to do should
involve them thinking and uncovering knowledge
that they can then fit into their understanding and
apply for themselves.
PW: Our goal and challenge are to make
classes more engaging, so the experience in
the class is better than watching a recording.
So they encourage and reward participation.
There’s plenty of strong evidence that active
learning improves attendance, engagement
and retention. Neurobiology demonstrates that
your learning is very dependent on your personal
connection. If you’re sitting in a boring lecture,
you have no connection to the information coming
at you. But if you’ve successfully nutted out a
problem, it’s rewarding and that reward makes
you remember it better. The vast majority of
students say they learn better in active learning.
IL: How much do students remember at the end
of four years? They can’t remember everything.
We have to concentrate on learning better rather
than learning more. Learning deeply rather than
just skimming across a whole lot of areas no
one remembers when they walk out the door.
So, for active learning, less is more?
But students need to be well prepared
for the real world.
PW: We don’t just want students to be able to
just regurgitate information. And we don’t want
to leave to chance their ability to think critically,
solve problems, communicate effectively and
work collaboratively.
IL: There’s strong demand by the profession for
our graduates to be more well-rounded – to not
only have a deep understanding of the knowledge,
but also those strong generic skills Paul mentions.
By engaging students, active learning enables
us to develop these skills as part of the
teaching process.
But why here? Shouldn’t we let someone
else be the guinea pig? Why not those
humanities people?
PW: Science education has been at the forefront
of active learning worldwide. Perhaps because
we’re often grappling with abstract concepts,
we need to find new ways to share them.
And a key driver for us as scientists and clinicians
here today is to teach in a way that’s evidencebased. We’ve gathered a lot of evidence that
shows if you have students prepare for classes,
it promotes uptake and retention.
IL: Our faculty is well-known for its use of
technology in teaching. Geeks like us love
technology. But we need to think beyond the
next bit of software to consider how we can
engage the students in all aspects of teaching.
Parkville has been an ideal proving ground for
the active learning model. It’s unique in that it’s
one faculty on one dedicated campus. We have
an ambitious leadership and an integrated team.
There’s a strong commitment to education as
well as research.
Impressive. Well thanks guys, that’s
very interesting. I really feel like I learnt
something today.
IL and PW: Touché.
Dr Ian Larson and Dr Paul White are both
recipients of the Faculty Award for Teaching
Excellence and the Vice-Chancellor’s Education
Award for Teaching Excellence.
They recently published a paper in the Higher
Education Research and Development Journal
on the Faculty’s active learning initiative
and achievements.
IL: Exactly.
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