Preparing students to participate in an active learning environment

Most students have spent the majority of their school career in passive learning environments in which faculty were disseminators of information, and students were required to memorize information or use specified algorithms to "solve problems." In an active learning environment, students are encouraged to engage in the process of building and testing their own mental models from information that they are acquiring. In such a learner-centered environment, faculty become facilitators of learning, and students become active participants, engaging in a dialogue with their colleagues and with the instructor. To create a successful active learning environment, both faculty and students must make adjustments to what has been their respective "traditional" roles in the classroom. For the instructor who is committed to promoting active learning, the challenge lies in helping students understand the necessity of becoming active colleagues in learning. This process can be facilitated if the curriculum includes exercises to direct students' attention to a number of issues that impact their learning. This paper describes four such exercises designed to help students form appropriate course expectations, recognize the need for seeking clarification when communicating, recognize the role of personal experience in building mental models, and become familiar with study aids for building formal models.