IQSS Co-sponsors "Active Learning: From Evaluation to Practice" Conference

November 20, 2014
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On November 3rd, over 60 higher education specialists from over 30 institutions in the New England region gathered to discuss active and activity based learning in the college classroom. Co-organized by IQSS affiliate Dustin Tingley and Bok Center Director Robert Lue, with support from the Bok Center and Harvard Initiative on Learning and Teaching, the goal of the conference was to identify ways to facilitate the adoption of active and activity based learning, but also strategies for accessing their impact.

In convening the conference, the co-organizers explicitly sought out a broad range of higher education institutions, with participants including community colleges like MassBay, to small liberal arts schools like Holy Cross, to large institutions, including Yale, Boston University, and University of Massachusetts, Boston. As such the conference was able to bring together a broad array of ideas and experiences.

A catalyst for the conference is the ABLConnect project started by Tingley and IQSS graduate student affiliate Leslie Finger. Located at ABLConnect.harvard.edu, and supported by the OpenScholar platform, the project collects and curates innovative active and activity based learning from across Harvard and other institutions. The project has also created numerous tutorials and other assets to facilitate adoption by graduate students, lecturers and faculty.