Active learning: styles, strategies, and implementation

Active learning is an educational approach focused on the student actively participating in their own learning process. 

It involves learning by doing, which is why it is known as participatory, autonomous, or collaborative learning, where the student interacts, reflects, creates, and solves problems. The result is meaningful learning that enhances student motivation. 

In this article, we invite you to discover how and why active learning is important and why active learning can transform the way we learn and teach.

What is active learning?

Active learning is an educational methodology in which the student takes a central and participatory role in their own learning process — that is, they interact with the content, make decisions, and reflect on what they are learning. 

This approach is based on students participating in activities such as debates, experimentation, or problem-solving. In this way, they become responsible for building knowledge through interaction with their environment and social exchange, experience, research and analysis of information, and practical application of knowledge. 

Theories that support active learning

Active learning is based on classical theories from Dewey, Montessori, Vygotsky, and Piaget, but also on modern pedagogical and cognitive approaches. All these perspectives converge on the idea that the student: 

• Participates in a reflective and conscious manner in their learning. 
• Develops cognitive skills such as discovery learning and self-regulation. 
• Gains deeper, more meaningful, and longer-lasting learning compared to passive learning. 

Why is active learning important in the classroom?

Learning actively improves memory, attention, and motivation. Student involvement in their learning makes knowledge more meaningful and lasting. Given this, implementing active learning in the classroom provides multiple benefits that contribute to student development: 

• Fosters motivation and interest in learning, as it makes the experience relevant by connecting it to real life. 
• Helps develop critical thinking because the student analyzes, reflects, and creates their own ideas instead of adopting a passive role of receiving information. 
• Improves knowledge transfer, helping the student use assimilated information in various contexts. Likewise, the skills developed also transfer to personal and professional contexts beyond educational settings. 
• Encourages class participation and autonomy, providing students with strong resources and tools that will accompany them throughout life. 
• Boosts creativity, enhancing the ability to find original solutions to the problems presented. 
• Strengthens interpersonal skills such as flexibility, teamwork, decision-making, or leadership, reinforcing collaborative work.

In short, as you can see, active learning improves student academic performance.

How does active learning work? Piaget’s constructivist theory

Jean Piaget’s constructivist theory constitutes one of the most important conceptual pillars of active learning, understood as a continuous construction through the reorganization of pre-existing cognitive structures. 

The student constructs knowledge by constantly interacting with reality, interpreting information, and creating meaning through engagement with the environment. In this dynamic, the roles of student and teacher are redefined compared to traditional education: 

• Student role: The student acquires learning by reorganizing their schemas in response to new situations. In other words, they process, interpret, and transform information obtained from the environment into knowledge. This self-management of learning makes it more durable and transferable to other contexts. 
• Teacher role: The teacher acts as a guide rather than a presenter. They are responsible for creating the right conditions that promote active knowledge construction in the student, using methods and activities adapted to each student’s developmental level. 

Cognitive development stages in children according to Piaget

Piaget differentiates 4 periods of child development: 

• Sensorimotor (0 to 2 years): The child understands the world through their senses and movements. 
• Preoperational (2 to 7 years): The child is still egocentric, but symbolic thinking and language appear, and they can perform logical operations. 
• Concret operational (8 to 12 years): The child can apply logical thinking to objects and situations. They can classify, sequence, and conserve knowledge. 
• Formal operational (12 to 16 years): Abstract, hypothetical-deductive thinking develops. The child can reason about possibilities.

These stages serve as a guide for organizing the school curriculum. The goal, in this sense, is to promote education aligned with the child’s real capacity for active knowledge construction.

Key processes of cognitive development

For Piaget, the key processes of cognitive development are assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration: 

• Assimilation: Integrating new knowledge into existing schemas. The student uses what they know to understand something new. 
• Accommodation: Schemas adjust to new information. The student modifies their knowledge because the new information does not fit their existing structures. 
• Equilibration: Acts because new information disrupts thought, and the mind must work to “balance” itself to organize and understand interaction with the environment coherently.

In short, the student assimilates new data into what they already know, but if that process fails, they adjust their mind to comprehend it. This is possible thanks to equilibration, which allows the child to reach more mature thinking.

Examples of active learning activities in action

The following examples of active learning activities will help you better understand the versatility of this strategy to improve student outcomes and engagement, both in physical and virtual classrooms:

Activities in the physical classroom

• Role-playing games
  
• Structured debates
  
• Labs and experiments
  
• Collaborative mind maps
  
• Problem-based learning (PBL)
  
• Learning stations
  
• Think-Pair-Share
  

Activities in the virtual classroom

• Discussion forums
  
• Collaborative virtual whiteboards
  
• Gamified quizzes
  
• Interactive surveys and quizzes
  
• Simulations and virtual labs
  
• Webinars and collaborative workshops
  
• Creation of multimedia content such as podcasts, newsletters, videos, documentaries, etc.

Active learning styles

Active learning style refers to the way a student prefers or performs best when participating in their learning. Initially, these styles can relate to the senses: 

• Visual learning: The student learns better with images, mind maps, infographics, videos, etc. 
• Auditory learning: The student is more comfortable listening, debating, or explaining aloud. 
• Kinesthetic learning: The student prefers learning through manipulation, experimentation, movement, or dramatization.

However, active learning styles go further, focusing on how the student engages, participates, and constructs their own learning. In this sense, styles focus on how students act, make decisions, and collaborate to learn.

Below are the most characteristic styles with examples of activities and skills they help develop.

Guided discovery by Jerome Bruner

In guided discovery, the teacher acts as a guide while the student explores and investigates without receiving direct answers. For example, in a science class, students must investigate why a candle goes out when covered with a glass. 

The teacher encourages exploration of materials without direct instructions, guiding students to solve puzzles, challenges, and make hypotheses. In this practice, students develop critical thinking, analytical observation, and logical reasoning using metacognitive resources. In other words: they learn how to learn. 

Experiential learning by John Dewey

In this style of active learning, the student analyzes participation in real experiences. For instance, in an art class, students visit a local museum, observe artworks, and interview a guide. 

They then create an exhibition to express their personal interpretation of the pieces, what they feel, what they like or dislike, and what impacted them most. Activities can include written or audiovisual reflection, dramatizing historical events, or artistic representations of studied concepts. 

This enables participants to develop skills such as creative expression, critical interpretation, and connecting theory with experience, giving meaning to learning. 

Autonomous learning by Maria Montessori

In autonomous learning, the student chooses the activities most meaningful to them and learns at their own pace. Free learning stations are often used in this type of active learning. 

They create a learning circuit on a topic, allowing exploration from different angles and through various materials, catering to classroom diversity. These processes foster skills such as autonomy, self-regulation, time management, and decision-making without direct teacher intervention. 

Social or collaborative learning by Lev Vygotsky

Social learning builds knowledge through interaction with others, encouraging idea exchange and joint problem-solving. An example is pair work to solve a complex math problem. 

One student acts as an expert (peer tutor) while the other asks questions until they solve it together. These exercises develop active listening, argumentation, peer learning, and shared knowledge regulation. 

Additionally, the student acting as tutor actively retrieves information, consolidating their own learning and reinforcing memory. 

Active learning strategies for teachers and students

Active learning demands a shift: the student takes center stage as the main actor in their learning, while the teacher assumes the role of facilitator. This requires strategies that are practical, inclusive, and adaptable to various levels and learning environments.

What are active learning strategies?

Active learning strategies are techniques that engage students directly in the learning process, encouraging participation, collaboration, and critical thinking. 

They emphasize active engagement with the material instead of passive reception of information. These strategies help students develop a deeper understanding and apply knowledge in meaningful contexts.

Experiential learning techniques are gaining great relevance, an integral methodology based on Kolb’s cycle: experience, reflect, think, act, all within a continuous learning approach.

The table below shows examples of some of the most relevant strategies, the type of class they suit, and the skills they help develop:

Active Learning Strategies

How to choose the best active strategies for your classes?

The main question is how to choose the best strategies for your teaching. It depends on several factors, starting with knowing your students. Analyze predominant learning styles. 

Next, consider these key points: 

• Define clear objectives and communicate them precisely. 
• Consider content, as some strategies suit certain subjects better than others. 
• Evaluate resources such as physical space, materials, etc. Your experience will also make you more comfortable with some activities over others.

In any case, introducing these dynamics should be gradual, starting with simple techniques that you can develop into more complex methodologies.

Common mistakes when implementing active learning and how to avoid them

Equally important as incorporating active learning is knowing common mistakes: 

• Fear of losing classroom control: Giving central space to students can be a challenge. In this disruptive context, the teacher’s role shifts from transmitter to facilitator. 
• Thinking it’s improvisation: For practices to be effective, they must have context, clear objectives, and a roadmap with defined times. 
• Not guiding enough: Simply proposing active activities is insufficient without reflection. This is where the teacher’s guiding role is crucial. 
• Ignoring diverse learning styles: Alternate methods, styles, and strategies, combining individual work with pair and group activities. 
• Unclear evaluations: Evaluations must be continuous, participatory, and process-focused. They should measure performance, guide learning, and make practices meaningful.

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