Designing opportunities for Practice

Site: WMO Education and Training Programme
Course: Calmet Moodle Unit 4 - Design opportunities for practice and assessment
Book: Designing opportunities for Practice
Printed by: Guest user
Date: Friday, 29 March 2024, 2:55 PM

Description

Active learning tactics, types and criteria.

The importance of practice

Quiz item

Practice is a fundamental principle of learning, but it is often overlooked. Some teaching consists only of presenting information to be remembered. The problem is, without practice, it will not be remembered well or contribute to skill development.

Practice takes learning further by asking learners to use and reinforce their understanding. Participating in discussions, answering questions, solving problems, preparing reports, and engaging in cases or simulations are all forms of practice. The learning outcomes associated with these practice activities are at high levels, appropriate for taking with us to our work lives. 

If you expect learners to be able to perform tasks that are more complex than simply recalling information--like understanding, application, analysis, or evaluation--you will want to use these and other forms of practice in your training.

Types of active learning


chalkboard with activity typesThere are many activities available that trainers can use to allow learners to practice using their new knowledge and skills. 

This introduction describes many common approaches to designing learning activities. You can adapt them to many contexts, mixing or combining them to meet the particular needs of your intended learning outcomes and audience.  

Activity types

The table below describes common types of learning activities used to provide active practice for learners. They are listed roughly in order of their complexity of implementation. These types were chosen for their particular relevance to teaching in meteorology and related disciplines. All of them can be implemented using Moodle capabilities. 

More than Lecture or Readings
Problems, Questions, Cases and Issues

Instruction is presented around a situation, perhaps by telling a story or describing a case, rather than by providing only information. Discussion is encouraged in which students explore the situation and propose explanations or solutions, using what they’ve learned to support their positions, while the teacher provides information and ideas to expand and clarify. Instruction is limited to short, but critical information. A conclusion can summarize the ideas proposed, as well as make the key points that would have been made in a lecture on the same topic.

Demonstration Rather than built around telling, a demonstration allows learners to see the procedures, concepts and principles in action. A demonstration can show how to use real technologies, show scientific principles through real or simulated processes, or reveal human behaviors with students or others as subjects in staged activities. When possible, demonstration is followed by practice. Field trips are also a form of demonstration, showing sites where work is conducted. 

Discussion Options
Structured discussions

Discussion is used to meet specific learning outcomes, based on discussion guidelines and expected outcomes. Rules might restrict the boundaries of the topic, tell when and how to make contributions to the discussion, ask students to represent sides to an argument, require responses to a set of questions, or work toward a planned conclusion. A debate is a structured discussion with a highly specified set of rules.

Open discussions Students are provided a direction, but empowered to freely explore a topic together. Students are encouraged to answer each other’s questions and even guide the direction of discussion. The teacher offers input only when no student can answer a question, or when it can expand or steer the discussion in a more productive direction. On the whole, when the teacher does contribute, it is more often to ask probing questions than provide information and answers. 
Small group discussions Students are divided into small discussion groups to encourage more individuals to contribute, bringing out a greater diversity of opinions. Small groups can discuss the same topic and then compare and discuss their outcomes, or discuss different topics and then teach what they discussed to the large group. 
Collaborative Decision Making Students work together in loosely structured ways to explore complex problems or issues. They collaborate in analyzing information, drawing conclusions, generating solutions and making decisions. Room is offered for creative approaches and evolving team dynamics, which also develops teamwork skills. 


Focus on Practice
Practice exercises

Sets of numerous practice exercises, such as lab exercises, require the application of the procedures or cognitive skills being learned. The exercises should require practice under varying situations or conditions, and might increase in difficulty or complexity. They can include, for laboratory exercises, math problems, and other short practice exercises with objective answers.

Tutorials The teacher provides a sequence of instructions, readings or presentations with frequent, interspersed testing and opportunities to practice what is taught. Tutorials may include individual branching based on assessment, redirecting those that need reinforcement to additional lessons, and allowing those that succeed to advance more quickly. In this way, it is personalized learning. 
Case studies  Instructional case studies require students to make decisions similar to those that would be made in real-world situations. Cases should be realistic, but might be simplified to focus on specific aspects of a case or specific learning goals. Students practice using data, interpretation, analysis, decision-making, and/or communication skills. 
Simulations Instructional simulations call for authentic decision-making in realistic conditions, including representative data, tools, and time limits, and in the responses learners receive in to their decisions. 
Role play Role-play is a form of simulation in which a group of learners improvise in a scenario, taking on the roles of people in the situation with differing needs, goals, and responsibilities in order to have first-hand experience in responding in such situations. If some students are in the role of observers, they should also be given guidelines on what to watch for. The teacher sets up the scenario, establishes the roles, and helps students to debrief and reflect on the experience. 
Games Instructional games use game-tactics to heighten the  learning experience through time limits, competition, and engaging and creative tasks like solving puzzles. In games, students have tasks to complete, they play by rules, and they work with the limited set of resources and tools provided. These constraints make a game fun and more comfortable than everyday life—by setting a beginning and end and by providing a level of fairness and equality through chance, while also rewarding skill. In these ways, games can be like simulations, which are often called “serious games.”  


Bigger Tasks
Problem-based learning

Instead of merely using a problem to initiate learning, the teacher designs large-scale problems that provide the overarching context for learning. Problem-based learning problems might require days or weeks of planning, researching, and developing a solution. The teacher provides resources and strategies, but let’s learners create their own solutions, justify them, and reflect on the process.

Projects Learners engage in realistic or real tasks and challenges. Projects might include research, report writing, data gathering, trying a new technique, developing a model or tool, or creating a local application. 


Learning Strategies

The learning activities described on the previous page can be grouped into several general categories of learning strategies. including Discussion, Inquiry, Project-based, Case-based, and Guided Practice. In the additional Section 1 books, these strategies are described, and some suggestions for Moodle tools are provided.