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Active Learning in a Large Group Setting: Increasing student engagement and understanding.

Many colleagues wish to enable active learning in their teaching practice. This is challenging, however, with a large cohort of students. Mrs Ingrid Sierp, lecturer in the School of Allied Health Science and Practice explains how she has re-designed her course to enhance student learning.

Observable barriers to student engagement

Following the return to on-campus learning, re-designing the intensive Biosciences for Human Health A (BHHA) course to foster engagement and promote continued attendance, posed a challenge to School of Allied Health Science and Practice lecture, Mrs Ingrid Sierp.

The course offers a 2-hour lecture and a hands-on 2-hour workshop on individual body systems each week. ‘Student take this course in their first semester and I needed to find a way to be able to gauge individual experience and learning in a large cohort’ explains Ingrid. 

Ingrid found through her experience as a lecturer in anatomy, that lectures which impart information from instructor to student using an ‘I talk, you listen’ approach often leads to a reduction in student attendance. This is because students do not see the benefit of their physical presence in class when they can simply watch the recording online.

’As a lecturer, the passive listening approach means it is difficult to know if my students are understanding the content delivered or whether they are just suffering through’ says Ingrid. Engagement and feedback are particularly important in a large group setting where, as a lecturer of 250+ students, it is impossible to gauge every individual student’s experience in real-time.

Further observable barriers could be gleaned from previous BHHA eSELT comments and anonymous student survey responses. Student perceived anatomy and physiology subjects to be content-heavy. They feel overwhelmed, particularly if they hadn't studied biology before (this was 31% of BHHA students who completed the anonymous survey). They also felt that they were being ‘talked at’ for the full 2-hour sessions.

Re-design aims

‘My first aim was to implement an active learning strategy within lectures’ Ingrid says. Given the large cohort size of BHHA and the 2-hour scheduled lecture length, this was important for increasing student engagement and encouraging continued student attendance. ‘This approach helps me to gauge student understanding in real-time and make immediate adjustments to delivery if needed’.

Due to the complexity of anatomy & physiology content and the perceived difficulty of the subject, Ingrid’s second aim was to create workshops that employ active learning for large groups. The workshops would further reinforce the learning outcomes from the lecture, with each individual activity being centred around one of the lecture learning outcomes. ‘My rationale’, Ingrid explains, ‘is that students learn in a variety of ways, and that concepts can be taught through drawing, talking, constructing, physical activities and so on’.

Active learning strategies

To address the first re-design aim, Ingrid replaced online lecture recordings with synchronous lectures incorporating student engagement opportunities. These live interactions are created using the Echo360 platform directly within the BHHA MyUni course and all student answers are anonymous. The lectures are delivered through Echo360, and the students simultaneously progress though the lecture on their chosen device. The interactions are strategically placed so that they appear directly after a block of content, relating to a specific lecture learning objective, has been delivered. The interactions come in the form of multiple choice, short answer, and image-related questions.

Live interactions serve as a beneficial tool in the educational process. They help to segment lectures into manageable portions, provide mental breaks and reduce the chances of students, particularly those new to anatomy and physiology, becoming overwhelmed. They also offer immediate testing of students' understanding of concepts, with the advantage of real-time feedback.

‘Having a way to measure student comprehension in the moment means you can adapt your content delivery as required’ says Ingrid. ‘These 'small wins' foster increased confidence in students, thereby promoting their continued attendance’.

To create workshops that would enable enhance learning in a large group setting, Ingrid replaced a passive work booklet with active learning activities. Students did not have to do any preparation for their sessions, nor bring anything other than themselves. ‘You can use a range of activity types, suggests Ingrid. ‘I have used role play, gameshow-style quizzes, construction activities, and adding a ball to just about anything’.

Active learning workshop activities offer numerous benefits. They fortify lecture concepts through various engaging methods which work for our diverse student cohort. Complex or challenging concepts that might seem overwhelming in lectures can be broken down into digestible chunks. The activities can create an enjoyable learning environment that encourages continued attendance. Furthermore, they make sessions more self-directed, allowing facilitators to manage multiple back-to-back sessions with ease.

Re-design outcomes and student feedback

The re-design of the Biosciences for Human Health A showed promising results. Weekly lectures garnered between 700-1000 student interactions, equating to about 100-120 students engaging each session. Workshop attendance remained consistently high, with around 65-70% of students regularly attending their assigned sessions.

It was really encouraging to receive unsolicited comments from students,’ Ingrid says. ‘They expressed appreciation for the interactive lectures and noted how the in-session questions helped to consolidate their learning’.

The engaging nature of the lectures also encouraged in-person attendance, helping students stay focused even in early morning classes. The workshops were praised for their focus on key learning objectives and the active teaching methods, as students found it easier to learn by actively being taught rather than studying independently.

These insights highlight the value of active learning and live interactions in promoting student engagement, comprehension, and overall learning experience in large cohort settings. This course redesign signifies a pivotal step towards creating a more effective and engaging learning environment for the future cohorts.