TLU Resources

"Are you tired of giving lectures and feeling like you’re the one doing all the work? Would you like to create a more positive learning environment for yourself where students are more involved and engaged in their learning? This was a highly interactive and engaging workshop that was divided into two parts to address these issues and provide some valuable insights into what can be done. Part one, involved discussions around: Why active learning could be part of your teaching What is active learning and what it might look like in your teaching context How you could engage in active learning in your classroom Some colleagues shared how they are currently using active learning strategies within their own teaching practice to engage their students in MTU Cork together with some other simple strategies that require little preparation. Part two, involved participants putting some of what they had learned into practice. They were asked to consider a module they teach and examine how they typically structure a lecture and what opportunities there are for students to engage during the lecture. They then redesigned their first lecture for this module to integrate some generally applicable AL strategies that they felt might work for them, their students, their discipline and the concepts they wanted their students to learn. To conclude, they were introduced to the Active Learning Movement, a new TLU initiative that will provide ongoing support to Lecturers should they be interested in implementing Active Learning (AL) strategies in their classrooms. "

"Team based learning (TBL) is an instructional method that puts students into roles of greater autonomy and responsibility for their learning. Groups are collections of individuals. Teams are groups who have developed a shared purpose and sense of collective responsibility. Groups evolve into teams when an instructor creates the proper conditions for effective collaboration. Well-designed tasks plus strategic course design create the conditions and environment that teach group members to listen to one another, value each other's contributions, learn from mistakes, rein in ineffective behaviour, and eventually trust in the team's ability to outperform any given individual. Tom outlined how weekly individual lab exercises were replaced with a semester-long team project and the impact that has had on student learning."