A revised excerpt from: Udvari-Solner, A. & Kluth, P. (2007).
. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Historically, active learning and collaborative methods have been touted and celebrated by a host of well-respected educators including Socrates, Booker T. Washington, John Dewey,
Paulo Freire, Maria Montessori, and more recently, Howard Gardner. Yet education in many
American classrooms still tends to be primarily a passive venture. Students are often asked to sit in desks for long periods of time and learn through what Freire (1970) deemed
“banking education”. In this methodology, the teacher teaches and students are taught; the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing; the teacher thinks and the students are thought about; the teacher talks and the students listen; the teacher chooses and the student’s comply; and the teacher is the subject of the learning process and the pupils are the objects (Freire, 1970).
Freire dismissed banking education as dehumanizing and called for a different kind of learning. He promoted instead a student-centered and relevant curriculum, a multicultural, democratic, and dynamic pedagogy, and a safe, tolerant, sensitive, and active learning environment. He felt that education should be pursued collaboratively with student and teacher working in concert to teach and learn. Further, he insisted that learners do not enter into the process of learning by memorizing facts, but by constructing their reality in engaging, dialoging and problem solving with others (Freire, 1970; Gadotti, 1994).
In other words, Freire believed in the power of active and collaborative learning and for good reason. Research at all levels of schooling has indicated that students learn and retain more when they have agency in the process and have opportunities to speak, listen, share, interact, reflect, and move.
In a well-known study, Ruhl, Hughes, and Schloss (1987) set out to explore what happens when students are given opportunities to make meaning of classroom content. In the study, two groups of university students received the same instruction in two different ways. In the experimental group, an instructor paused for two minutes on three occasions (intervals between pauses were approximately fifteen minutes) during each of five lectures. During the pauses, while students worked in pairs to discuss

and rework their notes, no interaction occurred between instructor and students. At the end of each lecture, students were given three minutes to write down everything they could remember from the lesson. Then, twelve days after the last lecture, students were also given a multiple-choice test to measure long-term retention. A control group received the same lectures as those in the “pause procedure” group and was similarly tested. In two separate courses repeated over two semesters, the results were consistent and telling.
Students who experienced more interaction and were more involved in the learning process did significantly better on the daily assessments and on the final multiple-choice test. In fact, the magnitude of the difference in mean scores between the two groups was large enough to make a difference of two letter grades. This study suggests, therefore, that if teachers talk less (even six minutes less as in the aforementioned study) students can learn more! This finding is counterintuitive as most teachers believe that student learning is boosted when more material is “covered”, not less.
In another different but related study, medical school professors prepared three different lectures on the same subject; one lecture was considered “high-density”, another was considered “medium-density” and the third was considered “low-density” (Russell,
Hendricson, & Herbert, 1984). Ninety percent of the sentences in the high-density lecture disseminated new information, 70 percent of the sentences in the medium-density lecture disseminated new information; and 50 percent of the low-density lecture presented new information. During the pieces of the lecture when new material was not being presented, the instructor reinforced material by repeating important ideas, highlighting the significance of the material, providing examples related to the content, and relating the material to the student’s lives and experiences. Finally, students were given (a) a pretest (that showed no significant difference in their knowledge base), (b) a post-test immediately after the lecture, and (c) an unannounced post-test 15 days later.
Statistical results clearly showed that students in this study learned and retained lecture information better when the density of new material was low. The implication is that the amount of new information that students can learn in a given time is limited and that we defeat our purposes when we exceed that limit. In other words, teachers would be better off presenting only a few significant pieces of information and spending the rest of their time engaged in activities designed to reinforce the material in students' minds.

These two studies indicate that teachers are working against their own objectives when they resist active learning. Its common to hear teachers say “I don’t have time for active learning because of the standards or the amount of content that must be covered.” The truth, for these teachers, is that they can’t afford NOT to use active learning in their teaching if they want students to learn and remember an ever-increasing number of facts, figures, ideas, and concepts.
Even the best and most entertaining lecturers begin to lose the attention of the audience within fifteen to twenty minutes. A well-known study of information retention supports this picture of what happens: immediately after a lecture, students were found to recall about
70% of the content presented during the first ten minutes and 20% of the content of the last ten minutes (Hartley and Davies, 1978). Recent brain research (Jensen, 1998) reinforces these findings indicating that continuous, intense attention to external sources can only be sustained for 10 minutes or less. Also, in order to promote and focus attention that regular
“mental breaks” lasting anywhere from five to 20 minutes multiple times a day are needed
(Howard, 1994; Rossi & Nimmons, 1991).
When used effectively active and collaborative learning strategies provide the vehicles for teachers to build in processing breaks , establish time for learners to “imprint” material, and create the social culture necessary for constructing new knowledge and responses that are critical to advance student learning. Of course more effective teaching and learning are not the only benefits of using active learning (though they are quite significant outcomes).
Teachers profit in active and collaborative classrooms too. Educators often complain (for good reason) that they do not have opportunities to observe their students, work with individuals, or listen to the everyday “buzz” of the classroom. In other words, teachers feel that they cannot engage in many of the activities that would benefit their teaching because they are too busy leading the group. When teachers use active learning, however, they have more opportunities to try new roles and take on new responsibilities. Teachers who no longer need to be the constant “sage on the stage” are free during active learning exercises to interact with students, ask and answer questions, teach mini-lessons to individuals or small groups, and even sit back and watch students to evaluate their learning.
Beyond the pedagogical benefits, active and collaborative learning make lessons much more enjoyable for both students and teachers. Educators have revealed that when students who

are accustomed to active learning begin working in their groups or engaging in a familiar game or structure, the entire mood and feel of the classroom changes. The volume rises, students are talking, interactions that might not happen spontaneously, occur, laughter is common, and everyone has an opportunity to contribute and to learn.
References
Freire, P. (1970).
New York: Continuum.
Gadotti, M. (1994).
Albany, NY: State University of New
York Press.
Hartley, J., & Davies, I. K. (1978). Notetaking: A critical review.
, 207–224.
Howard, P. (1994).
Austin, TX: Leorinian Press.
Jensen, E. (1998).
Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Alexandria, VA: Association for
Rossi, E. L., & Nimmons, D. (1991).
Los Angeles: Tarcher
Ruhl, K., Hughes,C., and Schloss, P. (1987). Using the pause procedure to enhance lecture recall
10, 14-18.
Russell. I.J., Hendricson, W.D., & Herbert, R.J. (November, 1984). Effects of lecture information density on medical student achievement.
, 881-889.