Strategies for lectures in an active learning classroom

Is it ok to lecture in an active learning class or classroom?  Absolutely.  A short lecture can be used to present background information that students will analyze or assemble as part of an activity.  Or, instead, students may be confused and in need of clarification and guidance in order to move forward with confidence.  These are just two out of many reasons why a lecture may be a beneficial component of a class, even one that meets in an active learning classroom.

Strategies for improving the effectiveness of lectures, regardless of classroom, center on breaking up the lecture into digestible pieces (~15 minutes or less) that are interspersed with short activities that engage students.  And by short, we're talking 2-6 minutes!  Johnston and Cooper (1997) offer eight different "Quick-thinks," a few of which are highlighted below.  See the full list of Quick-thinks, with examples, reprinted with permission by Tomorrow's Professor on this page.

Overview of select Quick-thinks from Johnston and Cooper (1997):

• Select the best response

This may be the quickest of the Quick-thinks as long as you have some multiple choice questions on hand.  Don't be tempted to identify the correct answer right away though!  Give the students some time to grapple with the options and why one of the options is the best out of the bunch.  I often used old test questions for this sort of exercise in my lower-level classes and found that some of the distractors provided much-needed opportunities to address misunderstandings or preconceived notions.

• Complete a sentence starter

The sentence starter can be simple and focused on recall (e.g., List the three main points of...), ask students to apply information from the lecture (e.g., Predict what will happen if...), or even venture into analysis (e.g., ______ is in direct contrast to ______ because ______).

• Reorder the steps

Great option for anything process-oriented.  Provide students with the name of each step but in a random order and provide them with 2-3 minutes to put the steps in the correct order.  

• Paraphrase the idea

Ask students to express an important idea, statement, or argument from the lecture in their own words.  Johnston and Cooper (1997) recommend also identifying the audience for the rephrased content, e.g., classmate, internship supervisor, parent.

The physical setup of an active learning classroom, however, may pose some challenges to delivering a lecture.  The active learning classrooms are clearly set up with students working and communicating in groups as the default setup - great for group activities, but creates a challenge when a central focal point is desired.  This is not a UWEC-specific issue; University of Minnesota describes the lack of a central focal point as a potential consideration for instructors in active learning rooms, and I agree with the recommendations to:

• use amplification - so important when some students are facing away from you!
• provide students with a cue to shift focus from groups to instructor and/or screen.

All active learning classrooms at UWEC are equipped with a wireless lapel mic, so amplification is available.  Believe me, I'm not a microphone person, but the mic's impact is noticeable to those in the room, especially those seated facing away from the instructor.  It is a worth a try!

Note, also, that these two recommendations can be one in the same.  The cue for students to transition from interaction within the group to something being presented to/shared with the whole class could be an announcement by the instructor using the microphone.  Communicate this - or any cue - with students in advance so that they know what to look and/or listen for!

Reference

Johnston, S., & Cooper, J. (1997). Quick-thinks: Active thinking in lecture classes and televised instruction. Cooperative Learning and College Teaching, 8(1), 2-6.

"Teaching without learning is just talking."

This statement, found on p.3 of Classroom Assessment Techniques by Angelo and Cross, adequately describes my fear when I end up speaking for an extended amount of time in class.  My fear was realized last week when my mini-lecture breached the 15 minute mark, taking up close to a third of the class period.

It is worth pointing out that I am not a lecturer by nature.  Speaking in front of people used to be a dealbreaker for me, and while it is no longer at the top of the list of things that make me uncomfortable, I simply lose interest in hearing myself speak.  I am interested in hearing what other people have to add, what questions are lingering in the room, and whether or not people have a sense of how to move forward with the information.   The mini-lecture, which is an abbreviated, focused lecture (I tend to aim for 7-10 minutes), is definitely my preferred approach when there is information to share.

My rambling "mini"-lecture left me feeling guilty - sheepish might be a better descriptor - after class that day, primarily because we ran out of time to finish one of our activities.  I spent two days (over)analyzing the situation and decided a discussion with the students was warranted.  (Did that extended lecture work for them?  Why or why not?)  The students were greeted with the graphic found on p.139 of Barkley's Student Engagement Techniques (below) on the large projector screens as they walked into class, and the first few minutes of class were spent discussing whether or not they agreed with the summary presented in the pie chart.  

Average Retention Rates from Different Teaching Methods;
Pie chart from Barkley, 2010, p.139; data from Sousa, 2006, p.95

The discussion started with small groups, and then the students were invited to share what they heard from others at their table.  Comments about several "slices" of the pie were offered; the conversation started with the 4% average retention rate associated with reading and then it moved on to details coordinating with the audiovisual category.  When I prompted for some thoughts on the 2% average retention rate reported for lecture, a student courageously raised his hand, and I nervously awaited the response.  

"We decided that it depends on what happens after the lecture."

The relief washed over me when I heard this statement.  He continued:

"The lecture on Monday worked for us because we did something after it.  You know, something that used the information, so we could try it right away.  That helped us figure out whether we understood it or not."

It is one thing to read through the literature and to understand, as an instructor, the importance of this approach to teaching and learning, but it is even more powerful to hear this outlook directly from the students.

In hindsight, I often feel guilty for having lectures, even mini-lectures, prepared for anything since we meet in an Active Learning Classroom which, by its very design, presents challenges to the traditional lecture.  However, if those mini-lectures paired with activities are working for the students, then there is no need to avoid them.

References

Angelo, T. A., and Cross, K. P. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Barkley, E. F. (2010). Student engagement techniques: A handbook for college faculty. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Sousa, D. A. (2006). How the brain learns. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Achieving "flow" with classroom activities

What factors affect whether or not students engage with an activity in the classroom?  The level of challenge associated with the activity is is one factor.  Another factor is the difficulty level of the coordinating content.  The combination of these two factors is also important.  If the activity and the content are both too easy, then students will be bored, disengaged.  If the challenge level of both the activity and the coordinating material are high, then students may give up or, worse, not even try.

The goal is for students to be engaged with the material through the activity.  This immersion is sometimes referred to as "flow" - I have been intrigued with the simplicity of this idea since hearing about it in a workshop a few weeks ago (see discussion, for example, in this short article from the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley).  Joel, our workshop presenter, pointed out that "flow" can be achieved by balancing complex with simple.  There are two basic pairings for classroom activities: (1) complex material with a simple activity, and (2) a more complex activity with material that is relatively simple.  Using the "Active Learning Continuum" conceptual framework as discussed by Bonwell and Sutherland (1996), a simple activity is one that is short in length and relatively unstructured while a complex activity can be described as one that is highly structured and has a longer duration.

Conceptual framework known as the "Active Learning Continuum" introduced by Bonwell and Sutherland (1996).

Pairing Complex Material with a Simple Activity
If students are being asked to dig into brand new material as part of an activity, then it might be wise to select an activity with easy instructions and/or one with a short list of tasks.  Learning new material often requires close attention, so a relatively easy activity allows students to focus on learning the content instead of learning the steps required as part of the activity. Classic examples of activities that are not-too-complex include brainstorming sessions, Think-Pair-Share, structured discussions (in which questions are provided), and a short writing assignment, e.g., Minute Paper.

"Flow" is achieved when complex is balanced with simple.  Either a simple activity for complex material or a complex activity paired with relatively simple material.

Complex Activity Paired with Material that is Relatively Simple

Drawing on our own personal experiences and review are two occasions when material is, generally speaking, "simple."  These are the times to pull out the activities that require a great deal of time and/or structure, including concept mapping, presentations, and debates.  When the material is familiar, students can focus on completing the tasks associated with complex activities.  

The simplicity of "flow" combined with the research documenting its potential for deeper learning is powerful.  This is my first introduction to the work of psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, who is credited with coining the term "flow," but I plan on digging in some more.  

Reference

Bonwell, C.C. and Sutherland, T.E. (1996), The active learning continuum: Choosing activities to engage students in the classroom. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 1996: 3–16. 

Why I continue to incorporate active learning

Our focus in class last week was on specification bias.  A challenging topic if you ask me - I have no doubt that my students will agree.  Our textbook offers a nice discussion of specification bias, including common causes, steps for detecting possible bias, and an equation for determining the sign of the expected bias.  The equation is handy but seems to suggest that identifying the sign (positive or negative) of the bias is a pretty simple process.  It isn't, especially for those new to applied econometrics.

But this post isn't about econometrics (I promise).  It is about the power of active learning in the classroom - a single example of why I continue to incorporate active learning strategies in my classes no matter what type of classroom I am scheduled in.

Here is what I have learned from students over the past few years when it comes to this particular topic:

• Students find an intro to why and when we might encounter this topic/issue to be helpful.
• They appreciate an expanded discussion of this "simple" equation from the textbook.  (What, exactly, does each component represent, and how do we determine whether a component should be positive or negative?)
• Practice with applying the equation is helpful.  

I planned accordingly for Monday's face-to-face meeting.  The students completed a "warm-up" exercise prior to the start of class; the exercise asked them to apply the decision-making process outlined in the textbook.  Our class meeting then started with a Q&A session followed by a "Go to Your Post"-inspired activity in which the two sides of the rooms represented the two available conclusions with students out of their seats, casting their "vote" and discussing their reasoning with one another (Silberman, 1996, p.61).  

Then it was time to dig into the details of this equation from the textbook.

I offered a mini-lecture, complete with scribbles, in an effort to clarify some of the details that coordinate with this innocent-looking equation.  Or so I thought.  I paused for questions after about 5-7 minutes of talking about the components of this equation and was, for a moment, happy that the students seemed to be satisfied with my explanations.  

Some of my "clarifying" scribbles from the mini-lecture.  Not all that enlightening in hindsight!

Time for practice.  I presented the students with two scenarios to analyze plus a follow-up question and instructed them to work in pairs on the first scenario.  Usually, the classroom starts to hum with activity as students start to work, but the room was silent.  Finally, a brave student spoke up and asked which two variables they were supposed to be focusing on.  I could feel the relief in the room; it was apparent that she wasn't the only one wondering how to get started.

So we switched gears and analyzed the first scenario together as a class which provided an opportunity for the students to see how I applied the process and used the equation within the given scenario.  This inspired a handful of questions (good ones!), and then the students got to work on analyzing the second scenario in pairs.  We reconvened as a class to brainstorm possible responses to the coordinating follow-up question.

I am grateful for last Monday's experience because it reinforces my reasons for incorporating "work time" into our face-to-face meetings in the classroom.  What if I had assigned that set of problems as homework instead of as in-class work?  I may have not realized until days later that some of the students were struggling with how to get started.  Instead, by working on the problems in the classroom, I was able to respond to what the students needed right when they needed it.  

I have revised my list of what is helpful for students for this particular topic.  The second bullet point now looks something like this:

• They appreciate an expanded discussion of this "simple" equation from the textbook and a demonstration of how to apply the equation within a given scenario.

Reference:

Silberman, M. (1996). Active Learning: 101 Strategies to Teach Any Subject. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. 

What I learned from my first week teaching in an active learning classroom

In short: The active learning room changes almost everything.

I listened to our instructors who shared their experiences last semester, and I heard what they were saying, including:

• The environment is great for students working in small groups. 
• Even better if the students have something to do/work on together.
• Planning, organization, and clear instructions are a must for activities (and takes a lot of prep time!).
• Groups finish at different rates so need to have something planned for those who finish earlier.
• The teacher station being located in the middle of the room is a new experience to get used to.
• Students' attention is focused inward to what is happening at or in their groups/pods.
• Giving a lecture, even a mini one, can be a challenge (see all of the above for explanation as to why!).

I never doubted a word of this feedback, but it is a completely new thing to experience them myself.  I took these to heart when planning for the first day, and it went well.  Overall we used just about everything available to us - technology, group workstations, whiteboards, open space (for our mixer); we brainstormed, discussed, located info, reported out.  It felt like we pretty much did it all and that it went smoothly.

And then there was Day 2.

Let's just say that things didn't go according to plan.  A mixture of things contributed to Day 2 not living up to my expectations, and I have been mulling it all over since 12:50pm on Friday.  Here are what I believe to be some contributing factors (sharing just in case it becomes useful for others):

• Too much was planned for a 50-minute period.
• The questions I posed to the class were too many and not strategic enough.
• A pod computer died in the midst of a group activity, leaving one group stranded since the activity relied on each group being able to display on the monitor located at the pod.  This threw off the rhythm more than I expected it too.
• A student's input seemed to be a conversation killer following what was otherwise a useful brainstorming session.  (And in hindsight, of course, I realize I could have recovered better!)

I spent the weekend brainstorming ideas of my own: structure for class meeting times, classroom management, clearer ways to present instructions.  I know that it is possible for an active learning-based class to run smoothly - luckily I have insights from colleagues here on campus and my own first day experience to build on.  I am convinced that the planning and organizing is key.  Maybe I had fallen out of practice with doing this because my classes had hit a rhythm of sorts over the past few years; often times I could walk into the classroom armed with a couple of old standby _____ (fill in the blank here: applications, problems to solve, news headlines to analyze, data set to manipulate) and go with the flow.  Perhaps part of me figured that it is still the same content and structure (hybrid/blended) so this semester would be more about ramping up the student engagement and involvement that I have been working to incorporate over the past few years.  It is so much more.  In some ways I feel like I am new to teaching again even though it has been nearly ten years since I started.  (The level of detail I am now planning out reminds me of the days when I used to note when to use the overhead projector vs. chalkboard - just 5-6 years ago! - and how to transition.)  It is very possible that the Day 2 experience is exactly what I needed - a swift kick in the pants to make the rest of the semester as successful as possible.

Today, Day 3, was better.  Back on the upswing.  Days 4 and 5 will be even better.  It takes time to get a feel for what works best in the space during our allotted class time.  I will share a bit more about what worked (and what didn't) during Week 2 once it is complete.

*It is worth noting that if I would have reacted as if Day 2 was how it was always going to be in an active learning-based class, with group work, in that particular classroom, it wouldn't be very appealing to continue.  I am convinced that all days don't have to be like Day 2.  For me, at this time, it is worth it to keep trying, to find the balance between planning out class meetings - every activity (well, every 5 minutes of class time, really) - and going with the flow.  

Planning for the first day of an active learning class

I have long believed that the first day of class is an opportunity to set the tone for the upcoming semester.  Ideally, the class environment will be one that fosters collaboration, discovery, and deep, meaningful learning.  Even with this outlook in place, figuring out what to do on that first day is often a challenge.  Sometimes there can even be a couple of hurdles to overcome. Class enrollment, for example, is often still in flux as students drop and add classes at the beginning of the term.  Student expectations can be another - how many of them will show up with the hope that they can hear a little bit about the syllabus and then leave?

An advanced apology to any of those students enrolled in my class this fall; it is highly unlikely that I will be reading the syllabus to you on the first day of class.  Will we take a look at it?  Probably.  If we do, it will likely be as part of an activity that asks you to work as part of a team.  A scavenger hunt-type activity, perhaps.  But there is a word of warning that comes along with that too.  You may have to generate your own list of things to look for first.  (I used to try to anticipate students' questions in designing this sort of activity, but doesn't it make more sense for students to get their actual questions answered?)  Hopefully the activity ends up sparking some discussion - maybe even some revisions to the syllabus too - which is perfect because the rest of the semester is likely to follow suit.

Sharing information about the course and addressing any potential anxieties related to expectations are both important for the first day, but I will probably kick things off with a different type of activity.  I prefer to pull out the syllabus later on after we have had a chance to break the ice and get a start on building community.  This is the tough part for me.  While others can pull off the light-hearted, sometimes silly, icebreakers, my heart just isn't in it, and I have no doubt the students can tell.  Instead, I am on the hunt for an activity that breaks the ice but also has a strong connection to the class.  Sometimes I try out an activity that connects with a key course concept, like the Candy Trading Game for an introductory-level economics course, but I may focus more on the learning environment this time around.  For example, I am interested in trying something similar to the Rainbow Mixer Little Idea for Teaching (LIFT) from the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology at Illinois State.  It reminds me of the Reciprocal Interview activity outlined in Teaching at its best by Linda B. Nilson but with the added encouragement for students to meet and chat with others located elsewhere in the classroom (that is, outside the groups they are already seated in).  Either activity provides the students with an opportunity to provide input about and influence the class environment, which is what I am most interested in.  It may even provide us with a decent segue into the brainstorming session for the syllabus scavenger hunt.

Both of the activities outlined above could easily fill a 50-minute class meeting, but I am hoping to streamline things and reserve the last 5-10 minutes for an exercise that highlights - and gets us started with - the applicability of the course material.  We'll see how things go!  Overall, I will be pleased if we can accomplish the following on the first day: breaking the ice, exchanging information, and building community; the three provide a solid foundation for what is to come this semester.

References:

McKeachie, W. J., & Svinicki, M. (2011). McKeachie's teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers (13th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Nilson, L.B. (2010). Teaching at its best: A research-based resource for college instructors (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Countdown for course prep: one month to go!

August is here, which means that the fall term is right around the corner.  My mind seems to be constantly churning through ideas - course design, syllabus language, activities for the classroom, assignment options, etc.  I am ready to get some of the ideas down on paper to free up some brain resources!

I first laid eyes on McKeachie's Teaching Tips earlier this year (wish it would've been sooner - such a great resource!) and there on the first page of the table of contents is the breakdown of a chapter titled "Countdown for Course Preparation."  At the time, I made a mental note to return to this chapter when planning my fall course and experienced a moment of slight panic this morning upon realizing that the chapter kicks off with some tasks to complete three months prior to the course start date.  Luckily the course, Econometrics, is one I have taught before, so the wave of panic subsided once I realized that I have completed most of the tasks, which include identifying student learning goals and procuring any resources students will need for the course.  Next in line is the course syllabus; the recommendation in McKeachie's is to construct the syllabus two months prior before the first class meeting.  I have a draft put together, but I am interested in adding a statement about active learning (see examples gathered by the Center for Teaching and Learning at Boise State available here) and a graphic that shows how we will move through the material plus, more importantly, connections between topics and learning goals/objectives.  (If supplementing a syllabus with a graphic is new to you too, check out this post on the ProfHacker blog, Maryellen Weimer's take on it in this Teaching Professor blog entry, and, if you are also an economics instructor, "The Syllabus Evolved: Extended Graphic Syllabi for Economics Courses" by Sauer and Calimeris.)

Since the fall semester is just about one month away, McKeachie's recommends:

• planning for class meetings,
• selecting appropriate teaching methods, and
• selecting appropriate technology.

For me, decisions in one category tend to affect decisions related to the other categories.  The fall class is hybrid (blended) with our face-to-face meetings scheduled in an active learning classroom.  So, we will be using both a learning management system (D2L) and technology located in the classroom; since we have computers and large monitors for each group available to us while in class, then our face-to-face meetings can include data analysis, online scavenger hunts, consultations of online resources, constructing visuals, etc.  The active learning rooms are set up so that students are working in groups by default, so I am paying close attention to group-based learning methods as I construct plans for the face-to-face meetings and select the best environment - online, face-to-face, or both - for each activity.  I will continue to work on these over the upcoming weeks and then check in again at the two week and one week (before the first class) marks, which are the upcoming checkpoints in the countdown for course preparation include.

In all the books and resources I have skimmed or read, the timeline approach to course prep in McKeachie's stands out to me as being unique.  Do you know of other resources out there that also offer timing-related recommendations for preparing upcoming courses?

Reference:

McKeachie, W. J., & Svinicki, M. (2011). McKeachie's teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers (13th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

What are students and instructors doing while in an active learning classroom?

A chart highlighting this very comparison was included in "Dissecting the Classroom," an article published on February 10th in The Chronicle of Higher Education.  I was so taken by the chart's simple yet powerful statement that I even tracked down a printer and tacked the visual to my bulletin board where it has been waiting for months to be shared.  Here it is:

The data comes from two representative classes - one lecture-based and one that incorporates active learning strategies - that are a subset of the larger study conducted by Smith et al. (2013).  The graphic from the published study uses pie charts instead of bar graphs (see Figure 4 from the published article, available here), but the basic message is clear no matter how it is delivered.  In the lecture-based class, students are primarily listening and the instructor is, no surprise, primarily lecturing with an occasional response to a question or a follow up of some kind.  The other class, the interactive/active learning one, identifies a variety of activities for both students and the instructor; students are still listening, but they are also thinking, working in groups, asking and answering questions, and discussing.  Notice that lecturing is still happening in the active learning class too; however, it is mixed with eight other types of activities and it takes a back seat to guiding and discussing with students.

There are a number of additional takeaways and possible points of discussion here.  One is a reminder that "active learning" is a broad term or phrase - it doesn't refer to one specific activity.  Instead, it refers to students being engaged in the learning process because they are actively doing something.  It is ok to include lecture in a class that includes active learning.  (Sometimes it seems as though lecture and active learning cannot be used in the same statement, but this is not the case.)  Lecture can be a useful mode of instruction for certain things, but the key is to use lecture together with other activities.

For those who are interested in how the students' and instructors' classroom activities were tracked, the tracking form and related details are discussed in the Smith et al. (2013) article, published in CBE Life Sciences Education and accessible here, as well as the article from the Chronicle.

Driver or passenger?

Last week I grabbed Design for How People Learn, written by Julie Dirksen, off the CETL bookshelves.  Why I reached for this particular book was based, at least partly, on the way the font and color scheme jumped out at me (by design, no?) but also because I am always curious about how we learn.  I have a collection of casual observations from my own classrooms, both physical and virtual, but how well do those observations translate across situations?  The answer to that question isn't entirely clear just yet, but I just had to share something in the meantime.  Another question, in fact.  One that is posed by Ms. Dirksen in her book on p.181:

Let's say you have to drive to a destination that you've only been to once before.  Are you more likely to remember how to get there if, on your previous visit, you:

a. drove yourself, or

b. were a passenger in the car? 

This is posed to the reader within a section that focuses on helping the learner with transfer and application, and while I see how it fits into that particular discussion, I am also storing this question away for future discussions of active learning.  If the goal is for students to be able reach the destination, shouldn't we give them an opportunity to drive?  Being a passenger is often an enjoyable experience.  You have an opportunity to enjoy the view, free to check your phone, join in on conversation when you choose, etc.  But you also are passing along most of the responsibility of reaching the destination to the driver.  An active learning classroom, compared to a traditional classroom, offers students more opportunities to drive.  This is a helpful step.  However, there is another step that is necessary: the instructor has to be willing to step aside and allow learners to occupy the driver's seat.  The instructor is still fulfilling a useful role.  After all, who better to provide some guidance than someone who has been there before?

How can we structure a learning experience or a class period that provides students with an opportunity to drive?  Ms. Dirksen offers one possible strategy:

1. Work through some examples.

2. Have the students identify the concepts they saw in the examples.

3. Clarify the concepts and correct any misconceptions using the original examples as context.

4. Have the learners apply those concepts to further examples. 

That is, instead of telling the students all about the concepts up front, first provide them with an opportunity to recognize or discover the concepts, following up with discussion and additional application.

Reference:

Dirksen, J. (2012). Design for How People Learn. Berkeley, CA: New Riders.

Use of class time in an active learning classroom

The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) is facilitating a Community of Practice series for active learning instructors this semester.  The meetings provide an opportunity for the instructors to get together to discuss activity ideas, students working in groups, classroom challenges, strategies for student engagement - plus anything else that comes up.

Our series kicked off last week with a group of instructors who are currently teaching in the new Centennial Hall active learning classrooms.  To get the conversation started, I threw out the question I wanted to be sure the group had time to discuss:

Student "pods" in one of Centennial Hall's
active learning classrooms

What is happening in the active learning classroom that is different from what typically happens in a traditional classroom?

The instructors all settled on an important observation as the starting point for this discussion... the students and what they are working on in their groups (pods) is the focus.  This is certainly a change from a lecture hall where the instructor, and what is happening at the front of the classroom, is the focal point.  All agreed that this shift necessitates change in the way the class period is structured; this has been documented elsewhere by other campuses with active learning spaces (see this discussion from the U of M, for example), but a discovery of any kind always resonates a bit more when it hits closer to home.

The transition to teaching in an active learning classroom is likely to be easier for instructors who frequently ask students to work in groups compared with those who primarily focus on delivering content through lecture since the setup of the active learning rooms lends itself better to group work.  Each of the instructors present for our first meeting acknowledged the need to work with the classroom environment; trying to continue on with in-class content delivery through lecture in one of these active learning spaces is likely to be a losing battle since students' focus is not on the instructor.

This transition takes time, and each instructor is at a different point in the transition process.  One of the participating instructors, Erin Devlin, taught one day per week in an active learning classroom during the fall semester, and, as a result, she has already developed a handful of in-class activities that work well for this type of classroom environment.  For others, this is the first semester that they have had an opportunity to teach in a space that is conducive to group work (a lecture hall with stadium seating and fixed chairs presents certain hurdles for students working in groups!), so it will take time to develop ideas for utilizing the new space.  A series of ideas and examples will be shared in future posts in an effort to help with this process.