ACTIVE LEARNING TRAINING FOR THE FACULTY: A CASE STUDY

The faculty of Telecommunication and e-Business in the Turku University of Applied Sciences wanted to lower the risk factors of student withdrawal relating to motivation, poor quality of student experience and lack of student engagement. The CDIO standard number 8 – Active Learning – provided some solutions to these risks. In addition, the faculty wanted to increase and support the use of active experiential teaching and learning methods. Therefore a training program was started in the autumn of 2008. The training was finished in January 2009. The main goal of the training was that teachers get to know, begin the experiments and usage of active learning methods. In addition, the training should provide new viewpoints for the role of a teacher and tools for assessment with active teaching and learning. The content of the training was divided into four topics: a) active learning methods, b) managing groups, c) different teacher roles and d) new tools for assessment. The training had four contact days and between the contact days study groups of four to six teachers were supposed to work with the agreed topics. There were altogether 10 study groups which all had a different development focuses. The training used a web-based learning environment for distributing materials and providing a discussion platform for teachers for example. The faculty gave very positive feedback over the training and several experiments were developed and many were implemented as well. The training fulfilled its’ main goals and we can warmly recommend this kind of training to others as well. However, the implications for student retention remain to be seen.