Active learning: an old concept for a new world

Charles Darwin used to say that the school he attended as a boy had been, in terms of education, a disappointment. He spoke, however, fondly of the hours spent poking around in the Shropshire countryside, observing the local flora and fauna. Natural sciences possess this contradictory duality: they can be terribly tedious when approached mostly from a theoretical perspective, yet absolutely fascinating when they allow time for observation, questioning and experimentation with the phenomena around us. This fascination is a driving force behind learning. As Piaget, Dewey or Mitchell emphasised long ago, knowledge is more easily and lastingly acquired if it is related to situations in which it can be applied, and interest – an essential yet all too often underestimated component of learning – is inseparable from inquiry and action.
During this seminar, I will walk you through various aspects of active learning and its underlying learning mechanisms, and we will discuss strategies for putting this approach into practice, including in ecology education.

Online access* • LINK
*To access the meeting in the app without using the link, use the meeting ID 377 348 826 204 586 and acess code Eb6Kd75h