Photo by Thor Alvis on Unsplash

Novigado invited different stakeholders to respond to the two questions: How should active learning look like in a school? What would you recommend to teachers? Here, Malgorzata Żytko, academic teacher and pedagogue, professor and employee of the Faculty of Pedagogy at the University of Warsaw in Poland, shares her perspective on how active learning should look like in schools.

According to Malgorzata there are two trends nowadays which help us formulate the goals of education: the standardization of educational practice and focus on diversity and multidimensionality of our society. The first trend is achieved by the implementation of top-down core curricula that strictly regulate the principles of school functioning, systems for assessing the effectiveness of education, with particular emphasis on external tests and a strong need to place educational achievements on the levels of the ranking ladder. Diversity and multidimensionality of our society, however, takes into account the different styles of student development and educational needs that manifest themselves in various contexts and conditions which altogether create a specific space for the functioning of education. These results in promoting learning theories focused on the child and revealing the child’s potential, stimulating and supporting student independence and being active in the process of constructing knowledge through critical thinking and developing skills through social interaction.

What Malgorzata does is examining the different approaches to the learning process, the traditional approach, the constructivist, the connectivism and the concept of dialogic teaching, to check how are they connected to active learning, what is the role of students and teachers in each approach and gives practical examples for each. Her input is valuable as each approach is being explained on detail and the examples provided give a clearer view on the impact that active learning has on the learning process.

Are you interested to know more about Malgorzata’s approach on active learning and be provided with a bibliography for further reference? Read the full article of Malgorzata’s Żytko here.