A Case Study in Promoting Active Learning

• To adopt active learning methods, Carson College eliminated large course sections and took steps to educate faculty in the latest pedagogies.
• The school also designed learning spaces conducive to active learning and created more extracurricular content to keep students on campus longer.
• Since these adjustments have been implemented, attendance is up and students are more engaged in the classroom.

 
While many higher education institutions recognize the value of active learning, some find it challenging to adapt existing lecture courses to a more interactive style. That’s particularly true at large state universities where budgets are constrained and some core courses have triple-digit enrollments in each section.

When schools want to convert to a more active learning style, some faculty will protest that such a delivery method is impossible when there are hundreds of students per section. Professors might lament that it’s impossible to get to know so many students, that there are too many papers to grade, that students don’t want to engage, or that active learning exercises create too much movement and chaos in the classroom. This type of resistance makes it challenging for schools to make the switch.

Another problem is that many instructors simply don’t know how to teach using active learning methods. In a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Beth McMurtrie lists a number of problems related to college-level teaching. First, teaching is rarely rewarded and sometimes not even valued. Second, the workforce is dominated by contingent faculty members. And third, few universities spend time and effort helping instructors become good teachers. Doctoral programs will require candidates to spend two to three years taking seminars on research theory and methods, but schools do not educate these candidates about active learning—or any other kind of teaching method.

At the Carson College of Business at Washington State University, we have heard all these concerns expressed. We believe they’re all well-founded. And yet, as we studied our assurance of learning data and held conversations with industry partners, we became convinced that we needed to change our teaching style to one of active learning. We knew it would be hard. We changed anyway.

A Series of Targeted Changes

We took six steps to make it possible to adopt a new teaching style:

We eliminated very large course sections. Although we previously had courses with hundreds of students per section, we have reduced the maximum enrollment of any business course to 70 students. This has allowed us to create more interactive and engaging learning environments.

We did not achieve this goal by cutting enrollments, reducing course offerings, or relying on more adjunct faculty. Instead, we hired more full-time faculty members, both teaching-track and tenure-track. These new hires also contribute to our research mission. While this change increased our faculty costs, we considered it a worthwhile investment.

As we studied our assurance of learning data and held conversations with industry partners, we became convinced that we needed to change our teaching style to one of active learning.

We made sure faculty were educated in active-learning pedagogies. Many of our faculty members were not familiar with the latest research and best practices on how to teach effectively using active learning. To address this issue, we created a new three-credit full-semester seminar that all doctoral students in the business school must take, ideally before they teach their first course. It fosters skills in areas such as active-learning pedagogies and backward course design, in which learning goals are set before the course is put together. We also offered new faculty from industry the opportunity to audit the seminar.

Moreover, we developed a series of modules about teaching—specifically about active learning. We put this onboarding resource online so new faculty could view it before arriving on campus at the beginning of the semester.

We created teaching-focused professional development activities for veteran faculty. Four activities have been particularly useful:

• We offer a case-writing academy that guides faculty through each step of the case-writing process: recognizing a need for a case on a specific topic, setting effective learning goals, creating a story, preparing questions, creating a teaching plan, and ideally publishing the case and plan.
• We run “lunch-and-learn” sessions featuring speakers from the faculty and staff of the college and the broader university. Presenters have covered topics such as running group projects, managing fairness, using simulations, and understanding challenges that first generation students face.
• We encourage faculty to work with peers, observing each other teach and providing feedback. We think this informal peer mentoring is as important as the formal mentoring we had already been doing.
• We provide course design support to faculty who teach virtual courses. We educate them in effective techniques for online asynchronous teaching, and we require them to design their courses months before classes begin.

We improved the way we evaluate teaching quality and effectiveness. To determine how well faculty are teaching and students are learning, we commissioned a task force to study how we could use data other than end-of-course surveys. For instance, we are modifying our annual review process so that faculty complete mini teaching portfolios that include annotated syllabi, statements of active learning methods they have employed, examples of exams and assignments, and reports of teaching observations.

We also are considering both direct and indirect measures from our assurance of learning process when we assess how students are achieving program learning goals. We are using all this data to improve our programs—as we did four years ago when we revised our core curriculum.

We expect improvements in our learning assessments and graduate placement rates. Faculty already are reporting that they have seen more student engagement and increasing levels of student attendance.

We created learning spaces conducive to active learning. The building that houses most of our classrooms was built in the middle of the 20th century and contains classrooms suitable only for lecturing. We are pursuing fundraising for a new building, but we cannot wait for it to be built before introducing new teaching methods. Therefore, we’ve found other existing classrooms on campus and refurnished them in styles that facilitate active learning. For instance, for classes that include case discussions, we are using rooms with parliamentary-style seating.

We created engaging extracurricular content. Too many students were just attending classes and leaving campus without participating in any additional activities that would enhance their learning experiences and improve their career readiness. To change this situation, we created a co-curricular program that all students are required to complete before they graduate, and we hired a small staff to run it.

The program offers hundreds of different activities each year, including workshops, guest lectures, competitions, internships, and study abroad programs. Students complete a portion of these activities to accrue “badges” for practicing certain skills such as networking or for taking advantage of opportunities such as high-impact learning experiences. Because these activities require only about 15 hours per year, students accept this additional requirement.

Sharing Our Story

To make these important adjustments and fulfill our educational mission, we did not simply rely on a meager state budget, but actively pursued funding. We’ve emphasized delivery of this program in our communications with alumni and supporters, and that has allowed us to raise philanthropic revenues. We’ve also generated resources based on strategic program design. For example, we closed our very small face-to-face MBA program and focused on building an outstanding online program that could be delivered at scale.

We implemented all these changes because we believe that active learning is the best way to prepare our students for their professional careers. We also believe that we owe our students an education worthy of the time and money they have sacrificed to attend our college.

While it is still too early to tell what long-term effects these changes will have, we do expect improvements in our end-of-program learning assessments and graduate placement rates. But in the short term, faculty at all levels already are reporting that they have seen more student engagement in the classroom. They’ve also noted increasing levels of student attendance—a typical jump is from 50 percent to 80 percent.

In her Chronicle article, McMurtrie calls for “Colleges that truly support good teaching … to … broadcast their successes more loudly.” That’s why we are sharing our story. We want other schools on state budgets to know that it is possible, if not entirely easy, to adopt active learning at a large scale. In fact, schools at any budgetary level can do the same.