UWA SPOT/SET Project

57)  attending the classes been important for an understanding of the unit’s subject matter

Active involvement in the learning process has been found to promote deeper understanding. Therefore class activities that encourage students to go beyond knowledge acquisition are necessary in the teaching of unit/course.

• Bowden and Marton (1998) stress the importance of integration within a curriculum to enable students to solve novel or real-life problems. They provide a number of possible teaching methods and examples of teaching in different discipline areas in the chapter “Bringing learning about” (pp. 130-159).
• Stalheim-Smith (1998)) provides eight examples of how she facilitated active and meaningful learning. Her goals are to acquaint students with new knowledge and to help the integration of new knowledge with students’ previous knowledge. In her view, the teacher plays the role of a coach while the students are the members of a team.
• McKeachie (1999)) discusses some strategies that can be used in classes to facilitate student learning in Chapters 5 and 6.

Bowden, J., & Marton, F. (1998). The university of learning. London: Kogan Page.

McKeachie, W. (1999). Teaching tips: Strategies, research and theory for collecge and university teachers. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Stalheim-Smith, A. (1998). Focusing on active, meaningful learning [PDF]. The IDEA Centre, Inc., Kansas State University. Retrieved 12 December, 2002, from the World Wide Web: http://idea.ksu.edu/papers/pdf/Idea_Paper_34.pdf