Active Learning in the Technology-Enhanced Classroom
In Spring 2022, we asked our student consultants (part of the CTL Students as Pedagogical Partners initiative) to reflect on their experiences with active learning and technology-enhanced classrooms.
In the following, six undergraduate students share what helps them stay actively engaged inside and outside of the classroom, and the tools and strategies that support their learning.
I feel actively engaged in a technology-enhanced classroom when…
- Technology is intentionally integrated into my learning experience.
- Online discussion supports in-class engagement and learning.
- Lecture content is available asynchronously to reinforce learning.
One particular tool that helps me stay engaged is…
- CourseWorks.
- Ed Discussion/EdStem.
- Perusall.
- Poll Everywhere.
One strategy or instructor move that helps me stay engaged is…
- Encouraging students to use technology in the classroom.
- Making course materials and notes accessible.
- Engaging with asynchronous materials before class.
- Building in opportunities for students to engage in class.
To learn more about active learning and to intentionally integrate instructional technologies, see the CTL’s resource Getting Started with Active Learning and instructional technology resources. Design for active learning and with students in mind by participating in the Active Learning Institute.
Sarah Considine
School of Engineering and Applied Science
Keylin Escobar
Columbia College
Emma Fromont
General Studies
Victor Jandres Rivera
Columbia College
Annabelle Tang
School of Engineering and Applied Science
Ambrose Zhu
General Studies
I feel actively engaged in a technology-enhanced classroom when…
1. Technology is intentionally integrated into my learning experience.
“I think that deliberate and purposeful use of technology is the most effective in encouraging me to be active in learning. Technological aids need to be integrated with purpose into the curriculum and materials for it to make a meaningful difference in the student experience. Classroom’s technology actively adds to the experience for learning and makes the material or instruction in class more accessible.”
– Ambrose Zhu, General Studies
“I think the streamlining of technological tools is super useful as it allows for students to easily locate the various tools and use them when needed. When resources are scattered it becomes very disorganized and challenging to navigate. In my experience with online learning platforms, I have found that the most effective schemes are well thought out / include 1-2 platforms max. My most positive experiences have come from a mix of EdStem and CourseWorks with a class Gcal component. When courses use more than these platforms I think it can become challenging to navigate and a bit disorganized. In these environments I find myself lost trying to find information.”
– Sarah Considine, School of Engineering and Applied Science
“Being explicit about pedagogical goals of each technology used allows students to be more insightful in their own use of technology. I am more insightful about my use of technologies when I know what their purposes are, and why the professor chose to use them for the class. I appreciate when professors are explicit – about the purpose of the class, learning objectives, the grading system – and technologies should be included in these discussions.”
– Emma Fromont, General Studies
“It is helpful when my instructor lets us know how to use each technology and where to find resources across different platforms. With more technology tools such as Gradescope, Ed Discussion, and other online platforms, students could get confused about where to find different resources and to submit work. In one of my classes, students use Ed Discussion to ask questions, and the instructor announces important information through Ed instead of emailing. We then download and submit the problem sets through Gradescope. Finally, we use Coursework to download lecture slides. My instructor indicates how each technology platform will be used in the syllabus, and this prevents confusion and boosts productivity.”
– Annabelle Tang, School of Engineering and Applied Science
2. Online discussion supports in-class engagement and learning.
“When it comes to seminar-style classes, discussion boards before class are really helpful. I found that they help me gather my thoughts on a text before sharing in class and it provides an alternative way to participate in the in-class discussion. It allows me to see what everyone else had to say and the amazing connections they made that I may not have thought about and that there may not have been enough time to discuss in class. I have also noted that it helps guide discussions in class and allows for participation without necessarily having to speak much. My Contemporary Civilization instructor reads our posts before class and references them in class, crediting the student that introduced the idea while inspiring a conversation for the class. This helps anyone who has anxiety about in-class participation by allowing them to participate in a way that feels safer and is less stressful.”
– Keylin Escobar, Columbia College
“It was beneficial to have an instructor assign a student the simple task of creating a group chat and take a short amount of class time to ensure all students were made members. The instructor was not part of the chat because it was intended to be a casual environment where more colloquial conversations could take place, but he made the effort to ensure it was created so that it could serve as a resource for the entire class. This fostered a sense of community. We were encouraged to communicate with each other and to collaborate on study materials outside of the class. We formed bonds online, which made engaging in class less daunting. Breaking down those walls made collaborative in-class activities more productive because we were already comfortable interacting with each other.”
– Victor Jandres Rivera, Columbia College
“Low-stakes written responses on the readings or discussion posts. It helps me think in depth about what I learned, without being unnecessarily stressed. I ask questions or underline what I did not understand. Because we had thought about the subject in advance and read our peers’ comments, the following in-class discussions were more fruitful and centered on what students had difficulties with.”
– Emma Fromont, General Studies
3. Lecture content is available asynchronously to reinforce learning.
“Technology can always serve as a way to create a more inclusive and supportive environment for students. I have found it very helpful when lectures are recorded, especially for classes where there is a lot of information provided and knowledge of it is necessary for exams. Knowing a recording is available reduces the stress of wondering if I noted all the details I need from a lesson and allows me to focus more on my learning and curiosity rather than note-taking. Recorded lectures help me learn at my own pace and they allow me to go back and review anything I may have missed.”
– Keylin Escobar, Columbia College
“Lecture and recitation recordings encourage active learning even after the lesson itself. Knowing that I have a means to review a class makes me take more active notes that leave steps for further review, which feeds into a positive cycle reinforcing learning as I always actively refer back to the material.”
– Ambrose Zhu, General Studies
One particular tool that helps me stay engaged is…
1. CourseWorks.
“My favourite technical aid is CourseWorks, which is key to encouraging students to do pre-work before class and to make course information and objectives of each class clear. Instructors who organize their notes and materials by class session using CourseWorks functions such as pages or files make it incredibly easy for students to be prepared for class. For instance, my music humanities professor organizes discussion, links and file uploads of readings, as well as additional material for listening, all together by class date using the pages function a week before every class. This allows me to know exactly what materials I should prepare before a specific class, and allows the entire class to not rely on guesswork as to what material is required. Similarly, my economics of education professor organizes lectures by file, and he retrospectively adds annotated discussions from class afterwards, which encourages me to cross reference his work with my notes for post class review.”
– Ambrose Zhu, General Studies
2. Ed Discussion/EdStem.
“I found Ed Dicussion to be most beneficial for my engineering classes. It is a convenient platform to post questions and the platform allows me to categorize my posts by “lecture,” “assignment,” “general,” and “test.” Moreover, it is helpful to see other students’ posts, and answering others’ questions makes me feel more engaged with the class.”
– Annabelle Tang, School of Engineering and Applied Science
“EdStem works really well for engineering courses as it allows students to collaborate with one another on projects and post discussion questions to be answered by peers or teachers in a timely manner. In addition, it notifies students of assignment deadlines via email.”
– Sarah Considine, School of Engineering and Applied Science
3. Perusall.
“In one of my sociology online classes last spring, we used Perusall. It allowed us to comment on the readings and read each other’s comments before each class. This was a low-stakes assignment – what mattered was to show engagement – which allowed me to not be afraid to write questions and difficulties. It was on the contrary valued. The professor would read our comments in advance and adapt the class to explain the points we had found difficult, for example.”
– Emma Fromont, General Studies
4. Poll Everywhere.
“For larger lecture classes, incorporating Poll Everywhere helps me stay engaged and gauge my understanding of the material. When I have doubts about a question posed through Poll Everywhere, I can look back at the question and my response and use that to determine which portions of the content I need to further review.”
– Keylin Escobar, Columbia College
One strategy or instructor move that helps me stay engaged is…
1. Encouraging students to use technology in the classroom.
“I think that having students engage with technology in class is really helpful in the sense that I am also using the technology to learn rather than simply watching the teacher demonstrate the technology used on the board. For example, in a computer science class that I am enrolled in we are all encouraged to pull up our computers to code along with the professor whose screen is projected on the board. This helps me stay engaged in the course and be an active participant in my own learning process.”
– Sarah Considine, School of Engineering and Applied Science
“I appreciate being allowed to use technology to take notes and refer to class materials. For most of my notes, I use a tablet because it allows me to hand-write while also letting me shuffle certain notes around such that they are in a way that I better understand it. It also allows me to have digital access to books which I find are best when I can annotate on them rather than create a separate document and take notes that way. It helps me stay more organized and it helps me stay better engaged in class because when an instructor refers to a page in a book, I can refer to it and I have my related notes on the side. When I’ve annotated physical books using post-it notes, I found that it was harder and more ineffective for my learning and class engagement.”
– Keylin Escobar, Columbia College
“In one of my industrial engineering and operations research classes, the professor utilized a third-party simulation website to mimic a real-world simulation of production and inventory scheduling in a factory. Students formed teams to utilize the theories we learned in class to come up with the different solutions to this online game. The game had two phases, and the second stage environment depended on the team’s input for the first stage. This interactive simulation immersed me in tackling a real-world problem, stimulated my creativity by pushing me to make assumptions on uncertain variables, and provided an opportunity for me to combine mathematical models with my computer programming skill.”
– Annabelle Tang, School of Engineering and Applied Science
2. Making course materials and notes accessible.
“One of my professors would upload a pre-class lecture slides for students to download. This is helpful for note-taking during class and following the content guideline. He then uploads a post-class version with notes he wrote down during class. This is helpful as I can focus more on actively absorbing the content rather than writing everything down during class.”
– Annabelle Tang, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
“An online database of solutions and class notes is also an effective tool for students to engage with the material. In past classes, this is typically done on CourseWorks.”
– Sarah Considine, School of Engineering and Applied Science
3. Engaging with asynchronous materials before class.
“I found that I felt more engaged when having clear, concise asynchronous material to prepare. My professor created multiple 5 to 10-minute pre-recorded explanatory videos on specific theoretical points. These broken-down lectures to watch in advance as much as I needed helped me better understand the specific topics. I felt more engaged than when lots of difficult concepts were explained all at once in a long lecture. It also allowed me to have time to digest the concepts and come to class knowing what I had difficulties with, and thus make the most of the in-class time by asking specific questions.
– Emma Fromont, General Studies
4. Building in opportunities for students to engage in class.
“Making the technology part of the lesson design. For instance, my professor used smart white boards (mostly found in the International Affairs Building) to incorporate interactive class activities into his presentation slides and lectures. This made the class much more engaging, as students know that they could be asked to step in during a 2-hour lecture and dedicate more effort to class preparation.”
– Ambrose Zhu, General Studies
Related resources
Explore the related on-demand resources created in partnership with past student consultants:
- Active Learning: The Learner’s Perspective
- Four Virtual Teaching Practices to Bring into the In-Person Classroom
- Learning Through Online Discussion