School Placement 4 2020/2021

Student: Sean Gallagher Topic: Active Teaching in Online Learning

Student ID: G00354679 Date: 27th January 2021

CRITICAL REFLECTION

We all know that students learn more when they are active and not passive in lessons in the traditional based
lessons. It is highly important that we as the upcoming educators who are training in the online learning
space, offer our students the best chance to be active learners in our Online Lessons and not passive
students.

“Do new learning spaces result in more use of active learning techniques”, [CITATION Pau16 \p 213 \l
2057 ]? I believe that it is very necessary for teachers to use active teaching strategies in the online learning
space as the students are more used to active teaching in the traditional class setting. So why would we as
educators change it now for online learning? I feel it would go against what the students prefer in your
classes to remove these active learning situations. For example, in construction studies students are at home
and all can investigate topics such as the type of stairs they have or roof they have, I could continue for vast
majority of topics that we teach in our technical subjects. This independent research/ activates that we can
get our students to complete can boost the student’s motivation levels. As it gets the students actively
involved in the lesson along with allow them to have a screen break away from their laptops as well.

“Activity breaks can keep students on task and help them to grasp new concepts", [CITATION Ree18 \p 5 \l
2057 ]. Not only do these activity breaks help the stay on track for the lesson’s duration but they also help
the students to grasp the information better. In comparison when a teacher is using a didactic teaching style
the students tend to lose interest in what the teacher is teaching about. However, with the use of these
activity breaks it stops the students from getting distracted on their learning and they are also being active
learners as they are seeing how the things are constructed or manufactured themselves. It all is in relation to
having an active lesson for your students to enjoy rather than having a lesson where the students are
struggling to stay on track in. Motivation is a key aspect of learning and with active teaching you will be
motivating your students. Motivation in learning happens when the teacher “involve a positive
reinforcement”, [CITATION Cav16 \p 146 \l 2057 ]. This positive reinforcement may come as a form of
feedback from the learning activity which they students will complete.
School Placement 4 2020/2021

The use of the active teaching strategies is especially important for educators like us to be able to use in the
online learning space. You as the teacher want to be able to inspire your students, you will find it extremely
hard to inspire your students when you are using a teaching technique that does not involved some format of
active teaching.

References
Cavanagh, S. R., 2016. The Spark of Learning : Energizing the College Classroom with the Science of
Emotion. Morgantown: West Virginia Univerity Press.

Raepler, P. M., 2016. A Guide to Teaching in the Active Learning Classroom : History, Research, and
Practice. First edition ed. Sterling, Virginia: Stylus Publishing.

Reed, J. A., 2018. Activating the Modern Classroom. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing