Dawson Active Learning Community – DALC

The Active Learning Classroom

Classrooms that are purposefully designed for Active Learning can complement good pedagogical strategies, can make the orchestration of complex activities easier for the teacher, and can offer affordances that both learners and instructors can leverage in the construction of knowledge.

Using an iterative design process driven by teachers and based on a program of research into the use and effectiveness of the spaces, Dawson has developed a series of classrooms specifically for Active Learning.

Active Learning classroom development at Dawson has been a faculty-driven process that is both iterative and research-based – a process that has been heavily influenced by Design Based Implementation Research (DBIR – see research by WR Penuel and BJ Fishman). As a result of this process several design principles have emerged as core principles of our classroom designs.

The AL Environment

Find out how the DALC provides students with the ideal environment for collaborative learning thorough Active Learning Classrooms – Click here

DALC Fellows Program for the Upcoming Semester

The DALC Fellows is a program that provides full-time Dawson faculty members with support to develop knowledge and discipline-specific activities to be used in the active learning (AL) environments; and, it includes a modest amount of release time to do so.