Active learning classrooms

About active learning classrooms

Active learning classrooms (ALC), also referred to as “smart classrooms” or “flexible classrooms”, are learning spaces that have been purposefully designed to engage students in the learning process and promote optimal conditions for active and collaborative teaching and learning.

Many classrooms still have fixed seating and tables that cannot be moved. If you are teaching in a traditional classroom or a lecture hall, you can still incorporate active learning techniques and activities that make it less likely for students to sit and passively listen throughout the entire lecture. Many active learning techniques, can be used in any classroom setting to allow students to move around and collaborate with others. You can also implement activities to engage students in discussion without having them leave their seats.

Although active learning can take place in any classroom, a classroom specifically designed for active learning is optimal because it provides a flexible space for a class to transition easily between a professor’s presentation and facilitated student group work.

Space design for active learning classrooms

Concordia’s active learning spaces are designed to support co-learning and the co-creation of knowledge to capitalize on the benefits of active learning fully. The common features of our active learning classrooms include:

1. flexible seating configurations;
2. shared writing surfaces; and
3. technology.

Flexible seating configurations

Furniture is an important component of the design of active learning classrooms. Desks and chairs are moveable, on rollers, and can be arranged in different ways to support many teaching strategies including individual work, group work, and front-of-room lectures and presentations. You can have a different layout depending on the activity you’ve got planned for your students. Moreover, the small, circular or rectangular tables that take up to 8 people, encourage students to communicate and work with each other and help create a community of learners.

Shared writing surfaces

Another special feature of these active learning classrooms is the shared writing surfaces. There are whiteboards placed around the rooms for students to visualize their ideas and plans, document their individual or group work, and share their work with the rest of the class. For example, if you pose a discussion question to the class, students could discuss the problem in small groups at their tables, and then write their collective ideas and answers on the whiteboards.

Technology

Concordia’s active learning classrooms are also high-technology classrooms designed to facilitate collaboration through screen sharing, video conferencing, and digital presentation tools. Having access to these digital collaboration tools and software gives students a shared digital space to contribute ideas and help each other understand new material. Instructors can also use the available lecture capture tools to record their lectures in order to provide their students with the option of repeating the lecture at their own pace and as many times as they need for an extra chance to digest new material.

Depending on the activity, you could be either using the classroom technologies or only using the flexible classroom setup and shared writing spaces as many active learning techniques do not always require the use of technology.

The following video, The classroom of tomorrow, provides an overview of the design and use of an active learning classroom. This represents Concordia University’s earliest efforts to construct an experimental active learning classroom. This room was used as a model and scaled up for the design of other flexible classrooms and active learning classrooms. For a variety of reasons, the room is now being used for other innovative learning projects.