Per Fredrik Andersson
Abstract
Active Learning in a Large Classroom
This project is concerned with active learning in large classrooms. Political science lectures are traditionally characterized by teachers covering vast, complex, material and learning mostly being passive. In my project, I implement a range of different instructional strategies in two large classroom lectures and evaluate them based on supervisor and student feedback. I found that by adapting the lecture to allow flexibility, it is possible to include a range of activities and still be able to cover the material. However, in order for individual and pair exercises to work optimally, it is important to link them to some form of evaluation/assessment. Thus, the outcome of tasks emphasizing student-student interaction can be improved by adding an element of student-teacher interaction. Finally, implementing more demanding tasks – such as group work aimed at higher-level learning outcomes – are particularly challenging and require careful preparation.