Active Classroom Strategies: Our Students as Participants and Producers
Social Studies teachers are changing past instructional strategies based on giving lectures with students taking notes to activities that have students explore and react to the content within the course. Students are working and collaborating with each other to understand social studies concepts and to express and listen to each other’s perspectives on issues. This change in instructional practices is helping to create young citizens who are ready to take action now and in the future in their communities and in the world.
Engagement through Active Classroom Strategies
Teachers who are proponents of active classroom strategies get their students engaged as they:
- Express ideas and perspectives and have discussions based on evidence
- Work with peers to interact with and understand new content
- Analyze documents, charts, and graphs and communicate understanding
- Think critically to connect concepts and events from the past and the present
- Take part in activities that appeal to different learning styles
- Demonstrate retention of essential themes of the social studies curriculum
Students as Contributors and Producers
Many social studies teachers have believed that they, as educators, have the responsibility to impart all content so that students will understand it. While these educators are the experts in the subject area, effective instruction does not require delivering lectures to expose students to new content. Active classroom strategies provide a way for students to become contributors to the educational process and producers of ideas and perspectives that can trigger greater understanding. Students can engage with new concepts even when they lack background knowledge of a historical period or governmental process. For example, a teacher can use the active classroom strategy, “If Images Could Talk”, and have students look at a visual image like a primary source photograph or work of art and ask questions of the persons represented. In this way, students initiate their learning based on their own personal interests. Using another primary source activity, “Take a Closer Look”, the teacher chooses a visual image and divides it into two or four parts. Students describe the section of the image assigned to them and hypothesize what was happening and why. In a third active strategy, “Audio Tour”, students examine a primary source chart, graph, or infographic and deliver a verbal tour of the image as they summarize the information contained within it. While the analysis of this type of primary source is often challenging for students, this strategy gets them involved early in producing ideas for the lesson instead of just receiving them. In all three examples, instruction is based on visual images to support students in their understanding and retention. In addition, all three build critical thinking skills as students explain, justify, and give evidence for their statements. Teachers still have a critical role in the learning process as they take student ideas, guide discussion and summarization, and contribute additional information.
Students as Developing Citizens
At all ages, students must develop citizenship skills and take action in their schools and community. Active classroom strategies provide many opportunities to build citizenship skills as students work with peers and collaborate. Using the active classroom strategy, “Take a Stand”, teachers pose a critical thinking question and designate places in the classroom that relate to how students might respond. Students move to the indicated places and discuss with others of a similar opinion why they think this response is correct. They then justify verbally or in writing their ideas and react to the perspectives of other groups. Students benefit from getting out of their seats and interacting with their classmates on key ideas from the lessons. In the active classroom strategy, “Write One, Get Three”, students divide a sheet of paper into fours and then the teacher asks a question to the class. Students write one response on a fourth of the paper and then move to other students or pass their paper to others to get three additional responses. Students benefit from listening to and learning from the perspectives of their classmates. Again, teachers have an important role in this instructional process. Students must learn how to have respectful, meaningful conversations with their peers. Teachers provide models and examples of accountable talk when individuals participate in a discussion or debate and utilize what they hear in the classroom to underscore important skills in being a good citizen.
Low Prep, High Impact
Teachers are inundated with many challenges that they are constantly trying to address. A true benefit of active classroom strategies is that for teachers they can be “low prep” while for students they can have a “high impact”. Teachers do not have to buy a lot of resources or dedicate hours to create materials to accomplish these strategies. Active classroom strategies can be implemented with flexibility because they focus on students working individually, in pairs, or in small groups. Students of different levels, abilities, and interests can all find active classroom strategies relevant and engaging and be confident to explore and utilize social studies content and skills.
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