• Charles C. Bonwell and James A. Eison. Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom. ASHE ERIC Higher Education Report No. 1, Washington, D.C.: The George Washington University, School of Education & Human Development, 1991.


An excellent reference that describes active learning, why it's important, how it can be incorporated in the classroom, and barriers to active learning (and overcoming them). Section titles are What is Active Learning?, The Modified Lecture, Questioning and Discussion, Additional Strategies Promoting Active Learning, Barriers to Change in the Classroom, Conclusions and Recommendations, and a 13 page Reference section.
 
 

• Arthur W. Chickering and Zelda F. Gamson. "Seven Principles for Good Practice." AAHE Bulletin, Vol. 39, pp. 3-7, March 1987.

 

 

• Frank J. Dinan and Valerie A. Frydrychowski. "A Team Learning Method for Organic Chemistry." Journal of Chemical Education, Vol. 72, pp. 429-431, May, 1995.


Application of active and group learning in organic chemistry at Canisius College.
 
 

• R. C. Dougherty, C. W. Bowen, T. Berger, W. Rees, E. K. Mellon, and E. Pulliam. "Cooperative Learning and Enhanced Communication: effects on student performance, retention, and attitudes in general chemistry." Journal of Chemical Education, Vol. 72, pp. 793-797, September 1995.


Discussion of a study on cooperative learning in general chemistry at Florida State University.
 
 

• Susan Brown Feichtner and Elaine Actis Davis. "Why Some Groups Fail: a survey of students' experiences with learning groups." Organizational Behavioral Teaching Review, Vol. 9, pp. 58-73, 1985.


Results of a survey of students' attitudes toward past group work experiences. Gives recommendations about how not to do group work that takes some effort to convert into recommendations on what to do.
 
 

• Richard M. Felder and Rebecca Brent. "Navigating the Bumpy Road to Student-Centered Instruction." College Teaching, Vol. 44, No. 2, pp. 43-47, 1996.


Addresses concerns faculty have when switching from teacher-centered to student-centered instruction.
 
 

• Ann E. Fleury. "Acting Out Algorithms: how and why it works." Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Consortium for Computing in Small Colleges Midwestern Conference (River Forest, IL, September 26-7, 1997), also published as The Journal of Computing in Small Colleges, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 83-90, November 1997.


Gives good examples of dramas for binary tree traversal, building a balanced binary tree, and the Eight Queens Problem.
 
 

• Peter J. Frederick. "The Lively Lecture - 8 Variations." College Teaching, Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 43-50, 1986.


Gives eight suggestions for activities that can deal with the loss of student attention span in the traditional lecture.
 
 

• David W. Johnson, Roger T. Johnson, and Karl A. Smith. Cooperative Learning: increasing college faculty instructional productivity. ASHE ERIC Higher Education Report No. 4, Washington, D.C.: The George Washington University, School of Education & Human Development, 1991.


An excellent reference on cooperative learning by one of the leading group of experts in the technique.
 
 

• Robert Magnan (ed). 147 Practical Tips for Teaching Professors. Magna Publications, Madison, Wisconsin, 1990.

 

 

• Jeffrey J. McConnell. "Active Learning and Its Use in Computer Science." SIGCSE/SIGCUE Conference on Integrating Technology into Computer Science Education (Barcelona, Spain June 2-5, 1996), also published as SIGCSE Bulletin, Vol. 28 Special Issue, 1996, pp. 52-54.


Discussion of a study on active and group learning in a theory of computation course.
 
 

• Jeffrey J. McConnell. "Active and Group Learning and Their Use in Graphics Education." Computers and Graphics (January/February 1996), Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 177-180.


Active and group learning techniques applied to computer graphics.
 
 

• Jeffrey J. McConnell. "Active Learning Techniques in Graphics Education." The Third Eurographics Workshop on Graphics and Visualization Education (Maastricht, The Netherlands August 28-9, 1995).


Active and group learning techniques applied to computer graphics.
 
 

• Judith E. Miller and James E. Groccia. "Are Four Heads Better Than One? A comparison of cooperative and traditional teaching formats in an introductory biology course." Innovative Higher Education, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 253-273, Summer 1997.


Results of a study comparing different approaches to introductory biology at WPI (Worcester Polytechnic Institute).
 
 

• Barbara J. Millis and Philip G. Cottell, Jr. Cooperative Learning for Higher Education Faculty. American Council on Education and The Oryx Press, Phoenix, AZ, 1998.

 

 

• Kathy L. Ruhl, Charles A. Hughes, and Patrick J. Schloss. "Using the Pause Procedure to Enhance Lecture Recall." Teacher Education and Special Education, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 14-18, 1987.


Discusses the Pause Procedure and describes the results of a study of its use.
 
 

• Melvin L. Silberman. Active Learning: 101 strategies to teach any subject. Allyn & Bacon, Boston, MA, 1996.


Begins with a general discussion of active learning and then discusses strategies in the categories of team-building, assessment strategies, immediate learning involvement, full class learning, class discussions, prompting questions, collaborative learning, peer teaching, independent learning, affective learning, skill development, review strategies, student-self-assessment, future planning activities, and final semester (closure) activities.
 
 

• John Stuart, and R. J. Rutherford. "Medical Student Concentration During Lectures." The Lancet, September 2, 1978, pp. 514-516.


Compares studies that show that student attention declines significantly after about 10-15 minutes of a lecture.
 
 

• Maryellen Gleason Weimer (ed). Teaching Large Classes Well. Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco, CA, 1987.


A collection of articles on active learning in large classes. Some excellent ideas and suggestions are present. There is, however, one article by Aronson that has a number of good suggestions but also, in the section on being personal with students, includes the creation of a "Loser's Club" (he uses that name with students!) for students repeating a class. Even though Aronson claims this name can be used without troubling students by calling them losers, I have a difficult time believing that this is possible or appropriate.

All opinions represented on this page are mine. No assumption should be made based on these statements about Canisius College, the Canisius College Computer Science Department, or the Canisius College faculty, staff, and students.

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