active learning – Adventures in Oceanography and Teaching

Currently reading Bjork & Bjork (2011) on “Making things hard on yourself, but in a good way: Creating desirable difficulties to enhance learning”

mglessmer — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 09:34:02 +0000

This is one of these texts that I wish I had known earlier: to give to students to help them understand their learning, but also to teachers as a super easy introduction to how to think about difficulties in learning: “Making things hard on yourself, but in a good way: Creating desirable difficulties to enhance […]

Source

Currently reading Gourlay (2015) on “‘Student engagement’ and the tyranny of participation”

mglessmer — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 08:28:21 +0000

Very intrigued by that title, especially since I just wrote about student engagement as something positive, that all universities claim to want! Gourlay (2015) describes that traditionally, student engagement is described as behavioural, emotional, and cognitive engagement with a learning situation (and possibly beyond), other people in the context, and the content — often set […]

Source

Currently reading Loughlin (2025) on “Building higher education: the tension between espoused educational values and physical infrastructure”

mglessmer — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 07:13:25 +0000

Why is it that even though most people agree (and most university policies state) that active student engagement is desirable, there are still large lecture theatres being built? Loughlin (2025) explores the “theory of action”, which distinguishes between what people or organisations say they do (for example in mission statements or policies; “espoused theory”) and […]

Source

Now published! “Student views on active learning in the Geoscience curriculum” by Kordts et al. (2025)

mglessmer — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 11:50:50 +0000

In this article, we investigate students’ experiences with active learning at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Bergen, Norway (where we have put a lot of effort recently into introducing co-creation). We find that students’ views on active learning vary significantly. Generally, students distinguish between active learning as a concept (which they like) and […]

Source

Currently reading Ramp & Hummels (2025) on “The Carousel: a mutual and parallel learning approach to design for societal transformation”

mglessmer — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 18:01:30 +0000

Ramp & Hummels (2025) describe the peer-consultation method “carousel“, “a method to facilitate the exchange of perspectives of different actors working in parallel on different challenges“: Each presenter gets 30 minutes to present a project and ask 2-4 peers for input and feedback. In order to manage to present a complex project and still have […]

Source

Who benefits from practice testing? (Schwerter et al., 2025)

mglessmer — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 16:23:19 +0000

Having just written about desirable difficulties yesterday, this Schwerter et al. (2025) article on “Differential use and effectiveness of practice testing: Who benefits and who engages?” fits the theme perfectly. In a nutshell, they find that practice testing (in a study on 325 students in an undergraduate maths class) improves performance on the final exam […]

Source

Notes on a presentation by Deslauriers on “The Illusion of Learning, What to Do About It, and How AI Can Help”

mglessmer — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 13:15:58 +0000

The STEM Education Research Centre at the University of Bergen had a really interesting presentation today (and the sketchy internet connection was more than made up for by all the kind people in the room that started streaming it from different angles!): Louis Deslauriers on “The Illusion of Learning, What to Do About It, and […]

Source

Preparing my course “Teaching for Sustainability” with the support of Noah (2025)’s brilliant book

mglessmer — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 15:21:20 +0000

In preparation for this fall’s online course on “Teaching for Sustainability“, I was looking into what kind of methods I want to model. And then — perfect timing — I started reading of Noah (2025)’s brilliant book on “Designing and Facilitating Workshops with Intentionality: A Guide to Crafting Engaging Professional Learning Experiences in Higher Education” […]

Source

Currently reading Noah (2025) “Designing and Facilitating Workshops with Intentionality: A Guide to Crafting Engaging Professional Learning Experiences in Higher Education”

mglessmer — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 17:25:00 +0000

As you saw in my recent post on the first draft of my “teaching consultations menu”, I found a really awesome book on “Designing and Facilitating Workshops with Intentionality: A Guide to Crafting Engaging Professional Learning Experiences in Higher Education” by Noah (2025). Before I show you how I applied the book to a course […]

Source

It is not necessary to convince teachers of active learning any more, it is now about improving the quality! (Dancy et al., 2024)

mglessmer — Fri, 31 May 2024 09:25:41 +0000

I haven’t read a lot of physics education research recently, but this article on how “Physics instructors’ knowledge and use of active learning has increased over the last decade but most still lecture too much” caught my eye. Dancy et al. (2024) report on how physics teachers in the US report on their knowledge and […]

Source