Active Learning
October 2025
What?
Active learning is widely defined as any pedagogical approach that engages students in meaningful activities and experiences to promote their involvement in the learning process. This approach is grounded in social constructivist learning theory, which suggests people learn best by building new knowledge on top of what they already know through experience and reflection. In practical terms, this means students might discuss concepts with peers, solve problems in class, or apply knowledge to real-world situations. Bonwell and Eison (1991) provided one of the earliest definitions of active learning as “anything that involves students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing” (p. 19). Watkins, Lodge, and Carnell (2007) extend this definition by identifying three key components of active learning: behavioral processes that involve students in actively using and creating materials; cognitive activities where students engage in actively thinking and constructing new meanings; and social activities wherein students collaborate with others as collaborators and resources (p. 71).
In their systematic review of educational research focused on active learning in Social Science and STEM courses, Doolittle et al. (2023) found that active learning practitioners prioritize students’ learning by engaging them in the process of constructing knowledge as individuals or with instructors and other students. They also found that when compared to a purely lecture-based teaching approach where students passively receive information through lectures, active learning promotes higher-order thinking, such as analyzing and evaluating information, and creating new knowledge. As an inherently student-centered approach, active learning can “empower [students] to take control of their own learning,” thus making them “more apt to engage in critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, and transformative learning” (p.17).
Decades of research confirm the effectiveness of active learning. In a landmark study, Freeman et al. (2014) compared student performance results from STEM courses that involved some active learning versus traditional lecture courses through a meta-analysis of 225 published and unpublished studies. The results of these studies suggest that active learning increases examination grades by an average of half a letter grade. On the other hand, when compared to courses that utilized active learning strategies, the failure rate for those in strictly lecture-based courses increased by 55%. These benefits extend across disciplines, from humanities to professional programs. Active learning works because it encourages deeper thinking about course material, provides immediate opportunities to practice new skills, helps students identify and correct misunderstandings, and makes learning more engaging and memorable.
Why?
As a methodology that prioritizes student engagement and agency, active learning benefits all students in the realms of academic achievement, retention, and even wellbeing. In a meta-analysis of 104 research studies comparing the assessment scores of humanities and social science students who experienced active instruction versus traditional lecturing, Kozanitis and Nenciovici (2022) found “sound scientific evidence for the overall superiority of active instruction” in terms of improving student learning. Studies of STEM disciplines have yielded similar results, with additional evidence to support that active learning can lessen disparities in academic performance for students underrepresented in these fields (Theobald et al., 2020; Haak et al., 2011; Lorenzo et al., 2006). Ungraded active learning activities can also alleviate student anxiety about assessments and improve retention in challenging courses (Adkins-Jablonsky et al., 2021; Khan and Madden, 2018). By supporting students’ sense of self-efficacy and investment in their learning, the use of active learning strategies may even foster negative feelings towards plagiarism (du Rocher, 2020).
Because many active learning strategies involve peer-to-peer interaction and classroom engagement, they are useful for establishing a sense of community, relatedness, and belonging. Besides supporting academic achievement, active learning also helps students develop skills transferable to professional life, such as communication, collaboration, and critical thinking. Ribeiro-Silva et al. (2022) found that active learning methods have an overall positive effect on student wellbeing by impacting their “physical, emotional, and social lives” (p. 9). Chiu and Cheng (2016) further suggest that active learning classrooms, which center student engagement and interaction through the design of the learning space, spark more student creativity and innovation. Though active learning classrooms may make peer-to-peer instruction easier spatially, you can still implement active learning in classrooms built for traditional lecturing. This is due to the sheer breadth of active learning methods, which we offer an introductory summary in the next section.
How?
When integrating active learning strategies into your classroom, it’s important to consider several factors to ensure the activities are both effective and manageable. Aligning active learning strategies with course learning objectives is the first crucial step to ensure activities support the course’s intended learning. Also consider the time required for planning and implementation, as active learning often requires advanced preparation and organization. Class size also plays a significant role in determining the scope and nature of activities. Smaller classes may allow for more personalized or collaborative strategies, while larger classes may require more structured or scalable approaches.
Additionally, keep in mind the diverse needs of your students when designing active learning experiences. To help ensure your active learning practices are inclusive and equitable, think about the physical classroom space vis-à-vis the activity you are planning. Fixed or bolted-down seating, for example, can make mobility difficult for all students, but especially those using mobility devices (e.g. wheelchairs). Pair work with nearby peers or providing assigned seating with reserved accessible seats for students with physical disabilities for group work allows for minimal movement during class time. Students with disabilities may struggle with the speed of transition from one activity to another, reaching for materials, or seeing projected images or slides. Modify active‐learning tasks to reduce physical strain by using digital tools like shared Google Docs for collaborative work and elicit the help of TAs to distribute materials that may be unreachable (Gin et al., 2020).
Access to materials and equipment needed to complete active learning tasks is another equity consideration. Communicate with students what they will need for the activity, especially if it requires laptops, smartphones, or other devices that may not be readily available, and provide resources for borrowing equipment if needed.
Finally, for active learning experiences that include group work, it is important to set clear goals and expectations. Specify the roles within each group and outline the responsibilities associated with each. You may either assign roles directly or allow students to select them. For longer-term group projects, provide a timeline with tasks broken down into smaller units with built-in opportunities for check-ins with you or their TAs to ensure they stay on track.
By thoughtfully addressing these considerations, you can create meaningful, inclusive, and effective active learning experiences to enhance student engagement. Below are some examples of active learning activities you can implement into your teaching practice. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it is a good place to start. As you become more comfortable with using active learning strategies, explore some of the additional resources below for more strategies and ideas.
Getting Started: Eight Ways to do Active Learning
Think-Pair-Share
Prep Time: 2-5 minutes
Activity Time: 10-15 minutes
Think-Pair-Share is one of the most popular and versatile strategies for implementing active learning. First, the instructor poses a question and students are given time (30 seconds or one minute) to individually think of a response. The students then pair up to discuss both of their responses. The instructor then invites pairs to share their responses with the whole class. Groups may be formed formally or informally. This is a great way to motivate students and promote higher-level thinking. Even though the activity is called think-“PAIR”-share, you can also ask students to share in small groups of three or four students. In an online course, you might give students a few minutes to think on their own before moving them into breakout rooms to pair and discuss their responses. If feasible, you might ask each small group or pair to share out with the whole class upon return; or, you can ask for a few volunteers to report out what came up in their discussion.
To prepare for a Think-Pair-Share, you will need to think of a discussion question or prompt for students to reflect on together. If students seem disengaged during a lecture or are slow to respond to a question, you can implement a Think-Pair-Share spontaneously to get them to talk to one another. Personal interaction motivates students who might not generally be interested in the discipline. You can ask different kinds and levels of questions to engage the entire class. Think-Pair-Share also allows quiet students to answer questions and talk through their ideas without having to stand out from their classmates. Think-Pair-Share is great for problem-solving activities, as the focus can easily shift to a problem at hand.
Polling
Prep Time: 0-5 minutes
Activity Time: 5-10 minutes
Polling is a versatile classroom tool for engaging students that is effective in both large and small classes. Using polling tools, instructors may gain insight into students’ prior knowledge, opinions, and understanding of course concepts. Additionally, students can see how their classmates respond in real-time, and you can use poll responses as a jumping-off point for discussion. Polling requires every student to provide input by voting, making it a great way to inspire participation among a quiet or hesitant group of students.
While you might poll using technology such as iClicker (which is free campus-wide to instructors and students and capable of syncing to your Bruin Learn gradebook if you want to use polling as a summative assessment), you can also poll students without technology. You can ask them to raise their hand and hold up one to five fingers to indicate their response to a multiple-choice question. You can also use the “fist-to-five” method to gauge students’ agreement with a particular statement, where a fist indicates disagreement and five fingers indicate complete agreement. A throat vote, where students hold their fingers to their throat to vote, allows anonymous voting, though it may be difficult to see how students are responding in larger classes. While you might use multiple-choice questions to test recall, polling technologies also allow you to ask open-ended short-answer questions, which you can display as a word cloud. Without technology, you can also ask students to indicate their agreement with a particular statement on a scale from zero to five using the fist-to-five method.
For a comparison of different polling technologies (including some which have not received Third-Party Risk Management Approval from UCLA), check out the TLC’s in-class polling guide, which also includes more detail about the pedagogical value of polling and best practices for developing questions and facilitating.
Gallery Walk
Prep Time: 15-30 minutes
Activity Time: 15-30 minutes
During a gallery walk, student or teacher-generated artifacts are displayed along the walls of the classroom. The instructor provides directions for what students should do as they walk around the “gallery.” Students might take notes for themselves about their impressions, or give feedback on the artifact using sticky notes (a version of the activity is also called a post-it-parade).
Curating artifacts yourself takes more prep time outside of class, but can be useful if you’re interested in how students make connections and intuit a shared context or critical differences among them. Asking students to generate artifacts for a gallery walk takes more in-class time but less prep time on your part, as you need only generate a prompt. For example, students might draft a thesis statement and identify three supporting pieces of evidence, which they draft on a large piece of paper. Following 10-15 minutes of drafting, students might then spend 10-15 minutes doing the gallery walk and leaving feedback for their classmates. You might then spend 10-15 minutes asking students to collect their artifacts and debrief as a class.
In classrooms with limited space or online courses, you can leverage a platform such as Gather.Town to create a virtual gallery space. Gather.Town allows you to customize password-protected virtual environments for students to walk through with digital avatars — students can video conference with each other based on their proximity in the virtual space, and instructors can add resources such as videos, documents, images, and links for students to engage with at their own pace. If you’re interested in learning more about how to use Gather.Town in education (including privacy considerations for students and features of the platform), you can learn more by reading Gather.Town: A Gamification Tool to Promote Engagement and Establish Online Learning Communities for Language Learners by Zhao & McClure (2022). For a shorter read, you can also check out 8 Steps to Organize a Virtual Exhibition via Gather.Town, a blog entry by a tenth-grade instructor about using Gather.Town to create an exhibition space for students’ personal projects.
Case Studies
Prep Time: 20-30 minutes
Activity Time: 15-20 minutes
To encourage students to apply knowledge to real-world situations, ask them to work in pairs or small groups to discuss case studies. Case studies are contextually rich and concise stories in which one or more characters negotiate a conflict or issue. You can write case studies relevant to your course by first determining a clear learning goal for students, and then thinking about which issues or situations are most relevant for students to explore, given your course context. Then, draft a short story (no more than a paragraph) including details such as character, location, context, and actions.
Effective case studies are thought-provoking without an obvious right answer. They encourage students to take a stance or make a decision, which is a relevant skill across disciplines. While you might have students all discuss the same case study, it can also be useful to explore different situations by having small groups of students work on different cases. If it’s your first time writing case studies, keep in mind that the drafting process may take longer. Consider asking colleagues if they have any case studies you can adapt, or searching online for inspiration. The National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science has a robust online library of STEM cases, and many universities and professional organizations offer online case libraries in other fields (for example, see the Harvard Kennedy School of Government).
During the activity, form groups or breakout rooms and distribute the case study on a physical or digital handout. Give students context for what perspective or analytical angle they should consider, allowing time for students to ask questions. Once students have an opportunity to read and discuss their assigned case, facilitate a class debrief by asking each group to present their approach. If you are successful in writing a complex case study, you may find that discussing each one takes longer than you anticipated. Consider setting a timer to ensure that each group gets an opportunity to share out and that you have time to articulate some broader takeaways for the class about the activity.
Student-Generated Study Guide
Prep Time: 5-10 minutes
Activity Time: 10-20 minutes
This activity can be particularly useful before a summative assessment, such as a quiz or exam. Rather than the instructor providing a study guide, the students work together to come up with multiple-choice or short-answer questions based on their understanding of the main course concepts that will be assessed.
To frame this activity, spend time reviewing the types of questions that students can expect to see on the assessment. Provide basic context about what the exam will cover: for example, the previous week’s unit, or chapters 3-4 of the textbook. Once students have an opportunity to ask questions about the format and focus of the assessment, give them 10-20 minutes to work in pairs or small groups to generate a set number of questions. For larger classes, fewer questions will make reviewing them more manageable, so you might have groups of students come up with two questions over the span of ten minutes. To create a shared record of the questions, you can ask students to submit them in a Google Form or write them on a shared Google Document. Debrief this activity by reviewing the student-generated questions with the whole class and providing feedback or revising the question where necessary.
Concept Mapping
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes
Activity Time: 20-30 minutes
A concept map demonstrates relationships between ideas using simple graphic representations: you might write a main topic in a circle, and then elaborate on that topic by drawing lines to other circles that contain questions, complications, and considerations. Assigning a concept map can be useful for helping students nuance their understanding of key course concepts or develop their ideas for research topics. To prepare for this activity, you can start by generating a list of key concepts or terms for students to explore and put in relation. If you want to save time in class and make sure that you cover certain topics, you can create the list before class and assign terms for students to map. If you would prefer for students to generate a list, so you can get a sense of what they consider to be critical concepts, you can spend the first 10 or 15 minutes of class brainstorming together. You might spend another couple of minutes briefly modeling how to create a concept map on the whiteboard so that students have an example to reference.
After students choose or are assigned a topic to explore, provide materials for them to make the map. If they’re working individually or in pairs, a simple pen and paper can suffice. To make sharing out easier, students might take a photo of their map and upload it to the course Bruin Learn site. You can then project the photos for the whole class to view while debriefing. Students working in small groups might benefit from using the whiteboard to represent their ideas, particularly if your classroom has multiple whiteboards. If you’re teaching online, students can work in breakout rooms using Google Drawings or Google Slides to create concept maps in small groups. Debrief this activity by asking students to walk you through the connections they made, asking follow-up questions to encourage elaboration and nuance. To see examples of concept mapping as a tool for research topic development, check out UC Irvine’s Online Library Tutorial on Concept Mapping.
Jigsaw
Prep Time: 10-20 minutes.
Activity Time: 20-25 minutes
A jigsaw activity involves two rounds of group work. To start, identify the related topics or different components of a problem that you want students to explore in class. Think about how many initial groups you will have and how many students will be in each. If possible in your classroom space, arrange the desks or tables into pods to ensure students have separate workspaces, as well as room to walk around the classroom.
Once students enter and settle into their initial groups, assign each person in each pod a different letter, color, or number. Then, ask students to regroup with their peers who were assigned the same letter, color, or number to form “novice” groups. Each novice group will be assigned a different topic to become an “expert” on in the next ten minutes. Ensure students have a way to take notes and that they understand that they will be responsible for teaching their classmates about their assigned topic afterwards.
After ten minutes, “experts” will return to their initial groups, each having learned about a different topic. The initial group then transforms into a “jigsaw,” as each person brings different expertise to teach to their peers. After fifteen or so minutes where “experts” share out in the jigsaw groups, reconvene as a whole class to debrief the exercise and address any points of confusion that came up. Online courses can run jigsaw activities using Zoom breakout rooms, though it may be more challenging to keep track of where to move students during the second “jigsaw” round of group work.
Discussion Boards
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes
Activity Time: 10-15 minutes
Discussion boards or forums allow students to engage with each other and with course materials synchronously or asynchronously, offering a starting point for in-class conversation. While discussion board posts can be graded easily by completion (allowing students to gain participation credit in ways besides speaking in class, which is part of inclusive participation assessment), you can scan responses to get a sense of students’ understanding of the course content. Student responses can be used to generate more engagement during class time. For example, you could ask students to pull up their response and talk through it with a partner, using the forum as a springboard for a Think-Pair-Share.
You can host a discussion board on Bruin Learn, or you may choose to use Slack or Discord if you’re interested in creating more informal communication channels to build community among students — for example, you might create a Slack or Discord channel dedicated to sharing pictures of pets, or one for sharing film and TV recommendations. These channels can exist separately from channels where students can ask questions, post weekly responses to the week’s reading, or indicate points of confusion.
For more on setting up discussion forums using your course site, you can peruse UCLA HumTech’s guide to Discussions in Bruin Learn. For more about Slack — which UCLA provides free access to for all students, staff, and faculty — check out UCLA Digital & Technology Solutions’ page on How to Use Slack. If you’re interested in using Discord, you can learn more about the pros, cons, and best practices of this platform by reviewing the following blog post by UC Irvine’s Division of Teaching Excellence & Innovation: Using Discord in University Classrooms: Overview and Guidelines.
Citing This Guide
Teaching and Learning Center (TLC). (2025). Active Learning. Teaching and Learning Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. Retrieved [today’s date].
Additional Resources
In Class Polling Teaching Resource: The TLC’s guide to in class polling with best practices and information on available polling tools to generate student engagement and feedback.
Active Learning Library: Extensive repository of active learning strategies that can be filtered based on degree of difficulty, required prep time, number of students, type of engagement, and other categories.
Engage Students with Active Learning: Active learning guide from UCLA’s Center for Education Innovation in the Sciences (CEILS)
Active Learning Resources: Curated by UC Davis’s Center for Educational Effectiveness, this resource offers advice and strategies for implementing active learning into your classroom.
Teaching in Higher Ed Podcast: Guide for podcast episodes from Teaching in Higher Ed featuring topics on active learning.
References
Adkins-Jablonsky, S. J., Shaffer, J. F., Morris, J. J., England, B., & Raut, S. (2021). A tale of two institutions: Analyzing the impact of gamified student response systems on student anxiety in two different introductory biology courses. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 20(2), ar19.
Bonwell, C. C., & Eison, J. A. (1991). Active learning: Creating excitement in the classroom (ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 1). The George Washington University, School of Education and Human Development.
Chiu, P. H. P., & Cheng, S. H. (2017). Effects of active learning classrooms on student learning: a two-year empirical investigation on student perceptions and academic performance. Higher Education Research & Development, 36(2), 269–279.
Doolittle, P., Wojdak, K., & Walters, A. (2023). Defining Active Learning: A Restricted Systematic Review. Teaching and Learning Inquiry, 11. https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.11.25
Du Rocher, A. R. (2020). Active learning strategies and academic self-efficacy relate to both attentional control and attitudes towards plagiarism. Active Learning in Higher Education, 21(3), 203–216. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787418765515
Freeman, S., Eddy, S. L., McDonough, M., Smith, M. K., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., & Wenderoth, M. P. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111(23), 8410–8415. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1319030111
Gin LE, Guerrero FA, Cooper KM, Brownell SE. Is Active Learning Accessible? Exploring the Process of Providing Accommodations to Students with Disabilities. CBE Life Sci Educ. 2020 Dec;19(4):es12. doi: 10.1187/cbe.20-03-0049. PMID: 33001769; PMCID: PMC8693940.
Haak, D. C., HilleRisLambers, J., Pitre, E., & Freeman, S. (2011). Increased structure and active learning reduce the achievement gap in introductory biology. Science, 332(6034), 1213–1216.
Khan, A., & Madden, J. (2018). Active learning: A new assessment model that boost confidence and learning while reducing test anxiety. International Journal of Modern Education and Computer Science, 11(12), 1.
Kozanitis, A., & Nenciovici, L. (2023). Effect of active learning versus traditional lecturing on the learning achievement of college students in humanities and social sciences: a meta-analysis. Higher Education, 86(6), 1377–1394. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00977-8
Lorenzo, M., Crouch, C. H., & Mazur, E. (2006). Reducing the gender gap in the physics classroom. American Journal of Physics, 74(2), 118–122.
Ribeiro-Silva, E., Amorim, C., Aparicio-Herguedas, J. L., & Batista, P. (2022). Trends of Active Learning in Higher Education and Students’ Well-Being: A Literature Review. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 844236. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.844236
Svinicki, M. D., & McKeachie, W. J. (2014). Active learning: Group-based learning. McKeachie’s Teaching Tips. 14th ed. Wadsworth. Lexington: DC, Health, 191–202.
Theobald, E. J., et al. (2020). Active learning narrows achievement gaps for underrepresented students in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and math. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(12), 6476–6483.
Watkins, C., Carnell, E., & Lodge, C. (2007). Effective Learning in Classrooms. London: Sage. http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781446211472
Zhao, X., & McClure, C. D. (2022). Gather.Town: A Gamification Tool to Promote Engagement and Establish Online Learning Communities for Language Learners. RELC Journal, 55(1), 240-245. https://doi.org/10.1177/00336882221097216 (Original work published 2024).