Learning based on students’ active participation in transforming theory into practice – as perceived by the students

Abstract

According to the theory of constructivism, learners construct their knowledge with their own activities building on what they already know and understand (Biggs & Tang; 2007, p. 21). Thus, teaching is not a matter of transmitting but of engaging students in active learning. Last autumn I developed a dialogue-based seminar where I gave lectures part of the time and the students participated in discussions, saw film clips and video case stories and analyzed paper-based cases. However, I had the feeling that the students did not really read the mandatory literature, at least not until after a mid-term exam, and that it affected their participation during class. Sometimes it made it difficult to have an active discussion in class. So, in order to further develop the seminar I wanted to encourage student participation by letting them work in groups preparing presentations of theories and models from the mandatory literature for use in analyzing case stories.