Instruction
The Bluebox is specially designed to support Active Learning, Team-Based Learning, Collaborative Learning, and Problem-Based Learning. Below are resources to support these and other pedagogical approaches when teaching in the Bluebox.What does engagement look like in the Bluebox Classroom?
The Bluebox learning environment is active, collaborative, and engaging. Faculty who teach here must design learning opportunities that leverage the unique characteristics of the space. According to Bonwell and Eison’s 1991 ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report, Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom, active learning is anything that “involves students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing (p. 19).” Faculty can innovate with their coursework because the Bluebox is designed to support group discussions, in-class group projects, use of interactive technologies, group quizzes, peer learning, and much more.
In the Bluebox students will experience collaborating on group-based and team-based work. Their work can include solving complex problems, generating compelling questions, grappling with weighty challenges, and creating prototypes and products. Team-based learning, specifically, features small groups of students who work together throughout course. Effective team-based learning requires student preparation before each class, usually by reading assigned materials, so the application of their acquired knowledge is the focus of time in class.
Check out the resources below to learn more about these approaches and how they apply to teaching in the Bluebox.
Active Learning
Active Learning: An Introduction
Richard Felder and Rebecca Brent offer a brief overview of active learning, its strengths and its potential pitfalls (which can be avoided with the proper knowledge). Their advice can be applied to the activities that are developed for the Bluebox and similar classrooms.
Continuum of Active Learning Strategies
How can active learning be incorporated into the classroom? There are many ways, and this brief list summarizes some simple approaches.
Using Active Learning Instructional Strategies to Create Excitement and Enhance Learning
This paper by Jim Eison provides instructional design resources and rationale for including active learning in courses.
University of Minnesota, Active learning strategies
For many additional active learning strategies, visit this site at the University of Minnesota.
Hang In There: Dealing with Student Resistance to Learner-Centered Teaching
Richard Felder’s essay outlines strategies faculty can implement if students push back against active, cooperative, or problem-based learning techniques in favor of more traditional methods.
Collaborative Learning
Collaborative learning, cooperative learning, and team-based learning can look very similar. For cooperative learning, especially, it’s important to design activities so there is a group goal and individual accountability. Cooperative learning recognizes that we all learn better together. Strategies for teams are often useful for collaborative and cooperative projects, as well.
Getting Collaborative Learning to Work for You and Your Students
This six-minute video shows how collaborative learning works in one professor’s classroom and highlights strategies BYU faculty have implemented in their classes. This resource is a great initiation into collaborative learning.
Cooperative Learning: Students Working in Small Groups and An Abridgment
Overviews that discuss the value of small groups and methods for using them for instructional purposes.
Problem-based Learning
This site describes the features of Problem-Based Learning as well as the process for using it, including assessment.
The University of Delaware’s award-winning PBL site
This is a resource for all things PBL. The link provided here leads specifically to a page of resources.
Generating Student Participation
An 11-minute video on YouTube which present strategies of generating student participation in classroom with real-life examples.
Team-Based Learning
Team-Based Learning (TBL) Collaborative
The TBL Collaborative is an organization dedicated to understanding, using, researching, and disseminating TBL approaches. Although there is a fee for official membership, this active community makes available a wide variety of resources.
A nine-minute video demonstrating how the TeamLEAD instructional method works at Duke University’s Medical School in Singapore.
Surviving Group Projects: Ideas and Resources for Students
A highly imaginative website for students, with strategies and tools for successful teamwork on group projects. Faculty can direct students to the site when assigning team-based projects. Short videos on a unique YouTube channel illustrate steps to success and suggest solutions to common problems.