Education Book Review/Active Learning in Secondary and College Science Classrooms

Michael, Joel A. & Modell, Harold I. (2003). Active Learning in Secondary and College Science Classrooms: A Working Model for Helping the Learner to Learn. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Active Learning in Secondary and College Science Classrooms provides practical tips for transforming traditional science courses into active learning environments. Although the title of this well-edited and well-organized book includes references to high school teachers, college professors of introductory science courses will find this text the most helpful as it outlines practical suggestions for transforming the lecture hall, laboratory, and "conference room" into an active learning and teaching environment.

The text is informative, yet simple to read and models the type of teaching the authors support —active, engaging, and constructivist. Each chapter begins by assessing the "input state" of the reader (for example, by asking the reader to stop, "Before Proceeding," to answer a question about the topic at hand) and ends by outlining the expected output state. End-of-chapter summaries (in most cases) help create a conceptual hierarchy among chapters by setting the stage for upcoming readings. Anyone who reads this book with a strong foundation in inquiry-based, active learning as it is operationalized in the K-16 science classroom, may be tempted to skip Chapter One. However, novices will find the first chapter an excellent way to ground their understanding of recent advances in cognitive science, how students learn, misconceptions, mental models, meaningful learning, problem solving, and collaborative and cooperative learning. A list of the ten key ideas about learning summarizes this research into a digestible format and serves as a solid foundation for future chapters.

The suggestions for transforming any traditional classroom into a more active-centered classroom are not only practical, but doable; however, Michael and Modell do point out quite clearly that the learner must be willing to work in an active environment to achieve success. The authors acknowledge that students who are driven by the letter grade and are performance-oriented, may be this way because they are most familiar with traditional teaching and learning. The authors attempt to counter the common argument that change isn't necessary if students are doing well on their assessments, by stating that active learning, which does not rely purely on students' recollection of facts and pure recall, is more meaningful and easily applied to other areas of study.

Throughout the book Michael and Modell enumerate the need for secondary and college science teachers to "adopt the helping the learner to learn" mindset. The authors reference their own work in conducting faculty workshops, which introduce other faculty members to this mindset; they also describe their practical experience in the classroom and provide evidence of the success of active learning on student understanding. The authors write, "To some, adopting the mindset implies that we must give up some control of the learning process. However, we never really had control over the student's learning — the student does. We can only control classroom activities, and this control is not lost by becoming a facilitator of the learning process" (p. 150). In addition, the authors make it clear that to transform a classroom into an active learning environment, there is no need to rewrite or throw out original course material; instead, it is possible to restructure course work by making it more student-centered and creating a safe learning environment that will allow the learner to engage with and accept this new way of learning.

In Active Learning, Michael and Modell intersperse discussions about their own research, in which they've examined the effectiveness of active learning on college student achievement, with references to other studies that support the effectiveness of active learning. For example, the authors discuss the work of Heller and colleagues, whose 1992 study of a large introductory physics course at a state university showed that cooperative learning led to superior results for all students compared with solving problems alone. The authors also reference such important works as that by Bransford and colleagues, who edited How People Learn: Mind, Brain, Experience, and School (Brandsford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999).

Michael and Modell cleverly close the book by referencing a series of challenges to creating active learning environments at the college and secondary level. Such challenges, which serve to summarize the main points in the book, include the difficulty in "covering" all of the material in the course, students' resistance to active learning, concerns over negative course evaluations, criticisms from colleagues, and the need to abandon old teaching materials. The authors quickly counter these challenges (and dispel common misconceptions) by arguing that while the common perception of a professor is to "tell" students what they need to know, active learning, which is student-centered, actually allows for deeper, and therefore, greater, coverage of material.

Michael and Modell's mantra also includes the notion that learning is the responsibility of the student; and, therefore, course evaluations should include student self-evaluations. Finally, the authors state that changing teaching from passive to active does not require abandoning all of our old materials. Instead, Michael and Modell explain that the question is not what materials to use, but how to use them. They give examples of how traditional teaching materials easily can be adapted to be more student-centered investigations.

While the principles outlined in this text are not new to science education reform, they do address secondary and college science teaching (with more examples germane to the latter), and can easily be applied to other subject areas. This practical resource—which includes guidelines for developing assessments and becoming more reflective in teaching practice—will carefully guide anyone who is interested in developing an active learning environment in his or her science (and non-science) classroom.

References

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.). (1999). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Retrieve 3/25/05 from http://lab.nap.edu/nap-cgi/discover.cgi?term=how+people+learn&restric=NAP

Pages: 171 Price: $39.95 (cloth) $19.95 (paper) ISBN: 0-8058-3947-X(cloth) 0-8058-3948-8(paper)

Reviewed by Carol O'Donnell, a Senior Research Associate at The George Washington University in Washington, DC, and Director of the Scaling up Curriculum for Achievement, Learning, and Equity Project (SCALE-uP), which examines the effects of inquiry-based curriculum materials on middle school students' understanding of science. She also holds a part-time faculty position with the Physics Department, teaching laboratory-based astronomy. Her areas of interest include curriculum development and methods for incorporating inquiry-based learning and teaching into introductory college-level science labs.

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