Here are some brief summaries of the literature that provides reasons for educators to become more informed about using active learning in diverse environments:
1. According to Felder and Brent (1996) in Navigating the Bumpy Road to Student-Centered Instruction “the education literature has described a wide variety of student-centered instructional (SCI) methods and offered countless demonstrations that properly implemented SCI leads to increased motivation to learn, greater retention of knowledge, deeper understanding, and more positive attitudes toward the subject being taught” (Bonwell and Eisen 1991; Johnson, Johnson and Smith 1991a,b; McKeachie 1986; Meyers and Jones 1993).
2. Felder and Brent (1996) also found that the “most frequently cited cooperative learning success story comes from the minority education literature. Beginning in the mid-1970's, Uri Treisman, a mathematics professor then at the University of California-Berkeley, established a group-based calculus honors program, reserving two-thirds of the places for minority students whose entering credentials suggested that they were at risk. The students who participated in this program ended with a higher retention rate after three years than the overall average for all university students, while minority students in a control population were mostly gone after three years. Treisman's model has been used at many institutions with comparable success (Fullilove and Treisman 1990). In another study, George (1994) tested several cooperative learning techniques on a predominantly African-American psychology class and compared their performance with that of a control group taught non-cooperatively. She found that group work led to significant improvements in both academic achievement and attitudes toward instruction.”
They further suggest that when using cooperative learning in classes that include minority students-ethnic minorities, or women in engineering and other nontraditionally female fields-try to avoid groups in which the minority students are isolated. Felder et al. (1995) report a study of cooperative learning in a sequence of engineering courses. Women responded to group work with overwhelming approval, but many indicated that they tended to assume less active roles in group discussions and some reported that their ideas tended to be devalued or discounted within their teams. The likelihood of these occurrences is reduced if a team contains more than one member of the minority population.”
3. Finally, Gurin, Dey, Hurtado, and Gurin (2002) in Diversity and Higher Education: Theory and Impact on Educational Outcomes suggest that in the current context of legal challenges to affirmative action and race-based considerations in college admissions, educators have been challenged to articulate clearly the educational purposes and benefits of diversity.In their groundbreaking research, Preparing College Students for Participation in a Diverse Democracy, they provide a theory of how diversity can be linked to educational outcomes in higher education and test this theory using national data. This research explored the relationship between students’ experiences with diverse peers in the college or university setting and their educational outcomes.The results of their analysis underscore the educational and civic importance of informal interaction among different racial and ethnic groups during the college years (pp. 330–366).
Diversity has a positive effect on campus communities, and interaction with people from different groups or backgrounds can be wonderfully educational. Active learning is one means of bringing this interaction into the classroom, and active learning itself has proven to enhance learning in many situations. The potential benefits of using active learning techniques in a diverse learning environment are enormous, and the following presentations will argue this case further and provide insight into effectively using active learning.
This PowerPoint presentation [see link at the bottom of page] summarizes key constructs in the research project, Preparing College Students for Participation in a Diverse Democracy. The research project provided a theory of how diversity can be linked to educational outcomes in higher education and tested this theory using national data. Full text of the research report from which this presentation is based can be found at
The presenters identified and applied 4 pedagogical keys for diversity, using the vignettes from a Critical Incidents video [described below] in this PowerPoint presentation [see link at bottom of page].
Vignette 1: Intent Versus Impact--Approaching theHistory Professor. A student speaks to a history instructor about her discomfort with one of his descriptive terms.
Vignette 2: Graphic Problems--"Motor Skills" Lecture. Student with visual disability enters the classroom, late and has to make his/her way to front of the room. The course is technical in nature and the instructor is placing numerous slides/overheads on monitor, nor does he/she provide handout(s) for student with the disability. Students are asked to practice finding muscles in each others arms while the instructor gives verbal and visual instructions, etc.
Vignette 3: International Misunderstanding--“Less Discussion, Please!” Three students from Indonesia have come to their instructor to request that he spend more time lecturing and less time on class discussion.
Vignette 4: What's Fair?A student with a learning disability discusses her essay grade with her instructor.
[Note: The vignettes summaries are from Critical Incident Videos available from University of Victoria, Office of Equity Issues, The Learning and Teaching Centre, Victoria, BCCanadaV8W 2Y2.
