How to Encourage Active Listening and Learning

One of the greatest skills we can teach our students is to think critically. It is and will continue to be one of the most vital skills one can possess in our global society with instant access to a wealth of information. I wanted to give you some tips from criticalthinking.org on encouraging active listening and learning in your classroom.

Regularly call upon your students to:

• Summarize or put into their own words what the teacher or another student has said
• Elaborate on what they have said
• Relate the issue or content to their own knowledge or experience
• Give examples to clarify or support what they have said
• Make connections between related concepts
• Restate the instructions or assignment in their own words
• State the question at issue
• Describe to what extent their point of view on the issue is different from or similar to the point of view of the instructor, other students, author, etc
• Take a few minutes to write down any of the above
• Write down the most pressing question on their mind at this point. The teacher then uses the above tactics to help students reason through the questions
• Discuss any of the above with a partner and then participate in a group discussion facilitated by the instructor.

A note about calling on students: This can be difficult if the same students always raise their hand while you never hear from other students. One tip I tried was to write down each student's name on a popsicle stick and put them all in a cup. When it was time to answer a question, I pulled out a popsicle stick and that student was called upon. Then I left their name out of the cup to keep it fair. This helped involve all students. At the end of class, I put all the names back into the cup for next time. I noticed that when students know they might be randomly called on, they paid more attention and were more engaged. If I called on them and they didn't know what they wanted to say, they could ask another student for help or I guided them through the thinking process.