The role of pedagogical tools in active learning: a case for sense-making

TL;DR

This study compares audience response systems and guided inquiry worksheets in large STEM courses, showing how different implementations support student engagement and disciplinary sense-making.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into how ARS and GIW tools are used differently yet effectively to promote active learning and reasoning in STEM education.

Findings

Both tools enhance student engagement and understanding.

Different implementation strategies can still foster disciplinary thinking.

Tools support conceptual, quantitative, and metacognitive reasoning.

Abstract

Evidence from the research literature indicates that both audience response systems (ARS) and guided inquiry worksheets (GIW) can lead to greater student engagement, learning, and equity in the STEM classroom. We compare the use of these two tools in large enrollment STEM courses delivered in different contexts, one in biology and one in engineering. The instructors studied utilized each of the active learning tools differently. In the biology course, ARS questions were used mainly to check in with students and assess if they were correctly interpreting and understanding worksheet questions. The engineering course presented ARS questions that afforded students the opportunity to apply learned concepts to new scenarios towards improving students conceptual understanding. In the biology course, the GIWs were primarily used in stand-alone activities, and most of the information necessary for students to answer the questions was contained within the worksheet in a context that aligned with a disciplinary model. In the engineering course, the instructor intended for students to reference their lecture notes and rely on their conceptual knowledge of fundamental principles from the previous ARS class session in order to successfully answer the GIW questions. However, while their specific implementation structures and practices differed, both instructors used these tools to build towards the same basic disciplinary thinking and sense-making processes of conceptual reasoning, quantitative reasoning, and metacognitive thinking.