Tag Archives: active learning

Learning Design Basics

Fink’s Taxonomy: The “Human” Learning Model

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When thinking of student learning outcomes, Bloom’s Taxonomy is the widely used framework, that faculty use to help write them.  While it is the standard, there is another type of taxonomy that faculty could also use to further customize the student learning experience.  This model is called Fink’s Taxonomy of Significant Learning.

Fink’s Taxonomy of Significant Learning is a course design model developed in 2003 by Dr. L. Dee Fink. It seeks to design courses around gaining foundational knowledge and achieving specific learning goals that students will remember beyond the end of the semester. By implementing it, instructors can better guide students to retain the core elements of their course after they complete it.

What Does Fink’s Taxonomy of Significant Learning Look Like?

When describing significant learning, Fink states it is “learning that actually changed how a student lived his or her personal, social, civic, or professional life” (Intentional College Teaching (ICT), 2023, para. 1). Fink developed this design model to encourage students to take what they learn in their college courses and be able to meaningfully apply it to their everyday lives.

By using this design model, faculty can utilize the following areas to ensure students are achieving the goals set for them:

  • Foundational knowledge: Understanding and remembering information
  • Application: Skills, critical, creative, and practical thinking
  • Integration: Connecting ideas, people, and aspects of life
  • Human Dimension: Learning about others and oneself
  • Caring: Developing new feelings, interests, and values
  • Learning how to learn: becoming a better student, inquiring about a subject, self-directing learners

When all the above categories synergize, students will have a significant learning experience. To achieve this, consider the following questions: What does “significant learning” look like for your course? What is your dream goal for students taking this course? After answering these questions, write learning objectives around these goals and develop course assessments that evaluate said goals.

“Educators who seek to adopt a comprehensive approach to their courses are encouraged to engage with Fink’s dimensions of significant learning. By aligning course objectives, activities, and assessments with the dimensions of Fink’s taxonomy, educators can provide a rich and engaging learning experience for students” (Dabney & Eid, 2023, p. 6).

What Makes Fink’s Taxonomy Different From Bloom’s Taxonomy

Where Bloom’s Taxonomy covers Foundational Knowledge and Application, a common critique is that it does not cover the “human” element. This is where Fink’s taxonomy expands upon it. For students to have a significant learning experience, they not only need a solid base of understanding, but a real-life application and a chance to internalize what they have learned. Bloom’s also does not assist students in “learning how to learn” in the way Fink’s taxonomy does. On Bloom’s taxonomy, Fink says, “I found that many of the kinds of learning that students identified as being significant did not fit easily into Bloom’s Taxonomy, even if one refers to all three of his domains of learning” (ICT, 2023, para. 1).

Implementing Fink’s Taxonomy Into a Course

According to Carolyn Fallahi (2023), an Associate Professor of Psychology, when developing (or redeveloping) a course around FSL, there are four goals to consider:

  • Less focus on Foundational Knowledge: “Instead of trying to cover every possible topic, I started incorporating basic concepts that I felt every student should understand. I stopped worrying about covering all possible topics” (para. 5). By choosing to focus on the “big picture” concepts, instructors avoid becoming too broad. Though this may be acceptable in entry-level courses, higher-level courses can suffer from becoming a mile wide and only an inch deep. Choose around three overall concepts and explore those thoroughly.
  • More focus on Active Learning: Active learning can take many forms, but lectures and textbook readings are rarely active for the student. Find opportunities to step away from traditional lectures and toward activities that involve and energize students. The type of activities may vary depending on the content of the course, but by incorporating active learning exercises into a course, students are more likely to retain the lesson.
  • Apply what you learn to real-world issues: The goal of college courses is to prepare students for a career in their chosen field. If a student does not understand how the content they’re learning in class applies to the “real” world, they may not feel motivated to engage or retain the information they learn. Fallahi avoids this by finding case studies that illustrate the concepts she is exploring in-class (para. 7). Besides case studies, discussing recent news related to the topic can highlight how applicable the content of a class is to a student’s life.
  • Make course lessons into life lessons: To build on the previous point, not only is it helpful to show students how lessons apply to their future careers, but how they apply to their lives right now. Think of questions for students to reflect on across the course that relate to the overall core ideas and their application. Invite students to discuss their answers, in small groups if the class is too large to allow everyone to speak. Giving the students a relevant lesson they can immediately apply to their personal lives makes that lesson more significant to them.

By streamlining the amount of base knowledge, instructors can focus on teaching their students how to apply what they know to their careers or personal lives. By engaging the students through active learning assignments, they will have more hands-on experience with the subject matter than they would get through a traditional lecture-based assignment. By applying it to real-world issues and life lessons, students will have a more personal example to take with them, which will help them internalize the lesson. The more an instructor focuses on ensuring the learning experience is significant, the more their students will benefit from the course overall.

Whether you are suing Bloom’s taxonomy or Fink’s Taxonomy to write your student learning outcomes, the SCSU Online and Distance Learning  team can help.  We can provide explanations, more literature, and answer your questions.  We can be reached via email or through Bookings.

Further Reading:

For more information on any of the following topics, please check out our previous blog articles.

References:

Dabney, B. W. &E id, F. (2023). Beyond Bloom’s: Fink’s taxonomy as a catalyst for meaningful learning in nursing education. Teaching and Learning in Nursing, 000, 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.teln.2023.09.007

Fallahi, C. (2011, August 19). Using Fink’s taxonomy in course design. Association for Psychological Science. https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/using-finks-taxonomy-in-course-design

Intentional College Teaching (ICT). (2023, February 5). Fink’s taxonomy of significant learning. https://intentionalcollegeteaching.org/finks-taxonomy-of-significant-learning/

Krukau, Y. (2021). A class having a recitation. [Photograph] Pexels. https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-class-having-a-recitation-8199166/

 

 

CJ Laudenbach is a student in the Mass Communications – Strategic Media Communications program at SCSU. She has past experience as a writer and editor for the University Chronicle.

Learning Strategies

Active Learning Strategies

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Student participation and engagement are key areas of focus for instructors. Active learning strategies can be successful among students when the instructors teaching the material are thoughtful and diligent in the design of learning. Active Learning strategies deal with how students encounter the topic, how they are engaged with it, and how they reflect upon it.  

Student engagement can be successful when instructors are willing to expand their practices to accommodate the needs of the active learning process. These methods include creative activities, group projects, brainstorming sessions, and discussions. Such activities will help the students engross themselves in the study material and help them quickly and effectively retain new information. Students tend to remember information much more effectively through an activity they had taken part in compared to a topic that the instructor just taught.  

Active learning can be enacted as a form of student participation within the classroom. Both students and instructors need to be fully invested in this concept, as the outcome of these techniques is highly valuable. These techniques put the student in charge of their education. The best thing about this process is that it can be done in a physical classroom or in an online setting. Instead of just listening to someone speak, students are expected to read, write, and discuss the core concepts they are currently learning. 

Woman wearing gray cardigan and eyeglasses standing in front of a corkboard with sticky notes and presenting.

Strategies for Implementing Active Learning Within a Course 
  • Game-based learning can be fun and engaging for students. It can include crossword puzzles, IQ games, roleplaying, and Four Corners. Four Corners is a game that presents several answer options to a single question; this is a practical approach to multiple-choice questions. Such activities redefine student engagement. 
  • Problem-based learning is a method where the student’s critical thinking skills will be tested along with their approach to solving the problem. This method helps students to deal with real-life problems as well. 
  • Collaborative learning is a technique where groups of students work toward solving a problem, by allowing them to inculcate each other’s viewpoints to solve the problem. 
  • Discussion-based learning involves everyone in the class talking about a particular topic so that the students can gain knowledge from different viewpoints. This activity can also be completed online, through the Discussion board feature, available in our LMS.
  • The jigsaw method involves students forming groups of three to four to work on a task related to the lesson content. Each student will be assigned one task within the group, where each student will be aware of the material, and can teach it to their fellow group members. 
  • An activity that is both creative and engaging is that of visual lists. Students can create a list related to a particular topic using pictures, symbols, and images. 
  • Live word clouds can also summarize a topic in a few words. This will help students to break down complex topics into a few words, which can be used to remember that topic. 
  • Reciprocal questioning is when the student takes up the role of a teacher, creates or gathers a few questions from the topic, then asks the rest of the class the questions. This technique promotes curiosity and discussions among classmates. 
  • The pause procedure is a technique in which the instructor arranges pauses of two to three minutes between ten to fifteen minutes of lecture time.  This allows the students time to review and reflect on their notes, then discuss their queries. 
  • The Muddiest point technique helps identify the unclear point in a topic. When the students can rate their understanding of a topic, it becomes easy for them and the instructor to identify the concepts that need further study. 
  • The Learning Cell is a very effective activity for active learning.  It is when a pair of students are expected to study and learn together by asking and answering each other’s questions. They will then discuss the similarities and differences in their notes after the class. In this way, students can focus on the points they had difficulty understanding. This activity also involves the instructor going from group to group, asking questions, and giving feedback to the students (Raudys, 2022). 

Active learning encourages student interaction and confidence because participating in such activities motivates them to take risks. Instructors can utilize these techniques to help students overcome their difficulties, by using the knowledge they have gained from the activities and their experiences.  If you are interested in adding these strategies to your courses, please reach out to the SCSU Online and Distance Learning team. Reach out to us via email or through Bookings. 

References: 

Albracht, L., & Hurson, L., (2019, August 28). Active learning strategies. Center of Teaching and Learning, Baruch, CUNY.   https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/activelearning/activity-list/ 

Faculty Focus. (2021, July 22). How to implement active learning strategies and activities in your classroom. Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning.  https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/how-to-implement-active-learning-strategies-and-activities-into-your-classroom/   

Fauxels. (2019a). Group of people sitting indoors [Photograph]. Pexels. https://www.pexels.com/photo/group-of-people-sitting-indoors-3184361/

Fauxels. (2019b). Woman wearing gray cardigan and eyeglasses [Photograph]. Pexels. https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-wearing-gray-cardigan-and-eyeglasses-3184295/

Raudys, J. (2022, September 13). 8 active learning strategies and examples. Prodigy Education. https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/blog/active-learning-strategies-examples/

Williams, A., & O’Dowd, D. (2021, January 19). Seven practical strategies to add active learning to a science lecture. Neuroscience Letters | Science Direct. https://www-sciencedirect-com.scsuproxy.mnpals.net/science/article/pii/S0304394020305875 

 

Nishika Gopathi is a Graduate Assistant for Online and Distance Learning at St. Cloud State University. She is a student of Information Assurance.  She likes to paint and travel in her free time.