The Sessions Session 2

Active Beats Passive

Why doing beats watching, and how to make your teaching active.

Before the session

Think about

“Think of something you learned and never forgot. Were you watching, or doing?”

We’ll start with your slides, then play: quizzes, polls and a few silly questions, before naming why they work.

Then you’ll make ten minutes of your own session active, designed for the place it really happens.

The task after this session needs a web browser. Not sure how? Tell us and we’ll pair you up, or see the computer task sheet.

By the end you will have

  1. Identified which strategy (retrieval, spacing, interleaving or elaboration) was at work in activities you just experienced.
  2. Redesigned ten minutes of your own session so learners do something, using at least one named strategy and fitting where it really happens.
  3. Explained your design in 60 seconds: the strategy, and why it suits the setting.
  4. Written a plan to make one active learning thing before next week.

Bring

Bring the slides you redesigned (or found) after Session 1, and your phone: we'll use it for the quizzes.

Didn't get to it? Come anyway. What got in the way is useful too.

After the session Your task before Session 3
“Before next week I will spend 30–40 minutes playing with Menti or Kahoot and make one active learning thing for my session, and bring it.”
  1. Put 30–40 minutes in your diary for it.
  2. Go to mentimeter.com or kahoot.com, sign up (it's free) and make one thing for your session: a poll, a word cloud or a quiz question. You don't need a class: just play from the presenter's side.
  3. Email yourself the link, so you can open it next week on any computer.

No computer, or it won't cooperate? Write your questions on paper and bring them. We'll build it together.

Using a computer and getting stuck? Tell your facilitator: we'll pair you up.

Step-by-step computer help (printable) →
After the session The key ideas Looking for the slides? Everything in them is here, with more in the Theory Library.
Testing beats re-reading. Pulling something back out of memory strengthens it. A quick quiz is a teaching tool, not just a test.
Space it out. We forget fast at first, then more slowly. Coming back after a gap (like these weekly sessions) makes learning last.
Active is a scale, not a switch. Listening, then doing something with it, then explaining it in your own words, then working it through with others: the more people do with an idea, the more they tend to learn. The setting decides how far you can go.
Design for the real place. A 6am handover isn't a study day. Build the activity for the corridor, ward or sim room where it will actually happen.

Where this fits in your canvas

Activities, part 2: what learners do. You made ten minutes of your session active.

Running this session? The facilitator blueprint →