What do we mean by active learning?

In Scotland, as in many countries throughout the world, active learning is seen as an appropriate way for children to develop vital skills and knowledge and a positive attitude to learning.

Active learning is learning which engages and challenges children’s thinking using real-life and imaginary situations. It takes full advantage of the opportunities for learning presented by:

• spontaneous play
• planned, purposeful play
• investigating and exploring
• events and life experiences
• focused learning and teaching

supported when necessary through sensitive intervention to support or extend learning. All areas of the curriculum can be enriched and developed through play.

This definition is supported by staff who attended seminars which took place in 2006 across Scotland to discuss the implications of A Curriculum for Excellence for the early years. When asked to reflect on what active learning might look like in early primary school, delegates suggested:

'A true building on experiences in nursery. Hands-on independent play with appropriate skilled intervention/teaching.'

'Children learn by doing, thinking, exploring, through quality interaction, intervention and relationships, founded on children’s interests and abilities across a variety of contexts. All combining to building the four capacities for each child.'

'Environments that offer differential play and challenge, staff who are well informed and able to challenge learning, child-centred and building on previous experiences, fun absolutely essential, children planning and evaluating their learning.'

 

Research background

There is much agreement that active learning, including purposeful play, has a positive and lasting impact on children’s learning in pre-school and the early years of primary school. (See, for example, a report commissioned by the Scottish Executive Education Department (SEED): Early Years Education: Perspectives From A Review Of The International Literature, 2006.)

In recent years, a more formal approach to learning and teaching has become prevalent in the early years of primary school, perhaps due to schools’ response to an increasingly crowded curriculum. Research indicates that developmentally appropriate practice is most conducive to effective learning. For example, it suggests that there is no long-term advantage to children when there is an over-emphasis on systematic teaching before 6 or 7 years of age. A key message is that approaches to fostering learning need to be flexible to take account of the needs of the child, and will change as children develop.

Work which was commissioned by SEED -  Insight 28, Early Years Education: Perspectives from a review of the international literature - to explore the scope for a more learner-centred and differentiated approach in Primary 1 also supports this view:

'An alternative perspective on the relationship between early years education and the experiences that precede and follow it is to think of learning as a spiral process. Viewed in this way the relationship between the educational process from birth to three, during the early years and in primary school is one in which learning in one period is revisited and developed in the next. This model encourages curriculum design and pedagogy to respond to children's different patterns of progress from action and sensory orientated exploration, through play and activity based learning to more formal linguistically and cognitively mediated instruction and exploration.'

Early intervention has been used in Scotland to provide focused support for young children’s literacy and numeracy. In 2001, the early intervention initiative was evaluated to determine the impact that the initiative had had on children’s learning. The Early Intervention in Literacy and Numeracy report described a number of improvements. Across Scotland, education authorities reported considerable success in raising attainment in literacy and numeracy as a result of the interventions.

However, there was concern about growing pressure on some children and that play and self-directed activity were now perceived to be less valued in the early years of primary school. The report listed a number of recommendations including the following:

'There is a need to debate curriculum balance in the early stages of the primary school, and consider whether play and self-directed learning opportunities are under-represented.'

A number of education authorities responded to concerns about diminished opportunities for play and active learning through their CPD programmes, which included courses and workshops on the importance of play as a vehicle for learning. In addition, a number of authorities provided additional resources and appointed staff tutors to support play in the classroom.