In the ‘regular’ class, children participate in asking or answering questions without a thought-enhancing environment. Likewise, for the other children, the class climate is boring and irritating to learn. Conversely, in a class with successful active learning, teaching strategies provide an opportunity for all children to reflect, positively think, and engage with learning activities that set out to practice higher-order thinking skills such as: analyzing, synthesizing, and summarizing.
Active learning as a teaching approach refers to a broad range of teaching strategies. According to Cambridge Assessment International Education, “Active learning is a process that has student learning at its center. Active learning focuses on how students learn, not just on what they learn. Children are encouraged to ‘think hard’, rather than passively receive information from the teacher. Research shows us that it is not possible to transmit understanding to students by simply telling them what they need to know. Instead, teachers need to make sure that they challenge their students’ thinking”. Through active learning, children plan their own learning process. Indeed, with active learning children use a distinctive technique of thought where learners actively participate in activities, exercises, and projects within a diverse learning environment that allows them to listen positively, constructive and advantage conversation, deep reflection on everything that they are reading or writing. Hence, Active learning further enables children to improve their personalities and transfers them from being passive recipients to positive active learners.
Although, teaching as design is a part of active teaching in basic education, there has been lots of focus on children’s learning, how they receive knowledge and how to gain new skills. to that end, teachers use a set of principles for active learning teaching, for instance, it is imperative that activities for active learning are useful and relevant to students’ interests, require them to reflect on the meaning of what they’ve learned, and how children learn to reason in a more adequate way, and critically evaluate their learning progress. Active learning includes a set of strategies and techniques, for instance: Role-playing is an effective way for children where they take on the roles of fictional or historical characters to explore and understand the world around them. Game-based learning: where games are used to enhance learning and give children greater involvement in learning. Collaborative learning: where children work together which promotes social problem-solving skills and teamwork. Learning by Teaching: this is a method of learning based on teaching others which encourages children to take on the role of a teacher in order to develop their learning experience.
In conclusion, both children and teachers accomplished when the learning environment and teaching are designed with an active, student-centered approach. Therefore, in active learning process, children can be able to participate in structuring their own learning, and most significantly, children develop their ability to become lifelong learners. Consequently, the final outcomes, and the skills they gain position them for future success. Accordingly, the effectiveness of active learning is probably most powerful when conceived as the intelligent approach to children’s learning in basic education.
