Product reviews for Active Learning

Classroom teachers who are seeking a practical book with creative approaches to capturing students' attention should consider Active Learning: Increasing Flow in the Classroom. Using fun activities that are rich in multiple senses and learning modes, teachers can bring their lessons alive in the classroom.

The concept of flow, according to Csikszentmihalyi (1990), involves a state of consciousness in which a person becomes so totally immersed in an activity that time flies by unnoticed. The active lessons in the book aim to engage students so that they become immersed in meeting the objectives in a pleasurable way. Active learning, according to Hollingsworth and Lewis, is "involved learning; it takes place when the learners are excited, mentally alert and caught up in the experience" (viii).

The book encourages the teacher to look at flow and active learning from three perspectives: creating an atmosphere for flow; active learning in the arts; and active learning everywhere. The subject areas covered are math, languages, social studies, and art. Measurable objectives, step-bystep procedures, teacher scripts, student handouts, evaluation tools, and enrichment activities are provided for each sample lesson.

One weakness of the book is its scripted format. Though a new teacher who is not secure in his or her words for teaching concepts, such as drawing faces, might benefit from this level of detail, a veteran teacher could feel stifled by constraints of language prescribed for each lesson. The strengths of the book, however, overrioe this potential weakness. The creative approaches to learning are certain to help teachers engage their students in active learning.

The book's approach to teaching architectural styles brought a smile to my face. I could easily picture students learning the specific movements for each structure and column type. I imagined the swooping and gliding of their hands to demonstrate the various types of architecture. From my experience in the classroom, I know that engaging students in bodily kinesthetic activities can clarify concepts and help students commit them to memory.

Hollingsworth and Lewis created the book Active Learning: Increasing Flow in the Classroom with input from other teachers who have tested these lessons in their own classrooms. Lending credibility to the text, the authors based the lessons on a review of the current literature on active learning and flow, created lesson plans true to those concepts, used the techniques in a real-life context, and then published those lessons that actively engaged the students. I would encourage teachers to examine the text for themselves and create active learning and stimulate flow for their own classrooms.