LOEX Conference Proceedings 2012

Document Type

Cocktails: Engaging Students with Active Learning

Publication Date

12-2014

Abstract

What sort of learner are you? Do you like to take notes while listening to a lecture, or do you like to jump into an activity without any instruction? Did you know that your preferred learning style can affect the way you teach? With questions about the validity of the Fleming model of visual, auditory, and tactile learners, instructors should become more aware of other learning style theories that can help them engage students in a class session. Through an introduction to the attributes of each learning style, this session will introduce participants to Kolb’s (1984) Learning Cycle and Learning Styles, which, though nearly twenty years old, can improve library instruction by showing the need to use various methods (including active learning) to engage students participants will understand how their preference for certain learning style(s) – accommodating, assimilating, diverging, or converging – affects their teaching approach. Then, participants will see how the learning cycle can be used to teach students how to evaluate information by viewing a lesson that guides learners through every step of the cycle, allowing them to actively engage in the discovery of evaluation methods, to reflect on their discovery, to test their newfound knowledge through more active learning, and to consider the implications of this knowledge. Using this lesson as an example, participants can create their own lesson plans that use the learning cycle to engage their students in a new and invigorating way at their own institutions.

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