Learning by doing

By Anne Gibson

Clark geography professors know that active learning offers undergraduates new opportunities to expand their minds and abilities

At Clark, "active learning" describes the process of students taking classroom knowledge and applying it to a wide variety of scholarly endeavors, and the process of scholars using their research to inform their teaching. Working in collaboration with faculty and graduate students, undergraduates become involved in the generation of new knowledge and creative expression. This type of learning—one hallmark of a Clark education—is rooted in problem solving and is developmental, unfolding in sophisticated ways from a student's first year through the senior year. It can involve reflection in the classroom, research in a laboratory or library, field research, an internship or other project.

Active learning is different from turning in a research paper at the end of the semester. For some of us, that sometimes meant frantic days in the library the week before the due date, and pulling one or more all-nighters to get it written in time. Feedback usually came too late—in the form of a final grade.

Not so in Geography 141: Research Methods. The goal of Research Methods, according to geographer Susan Hanson, who teaches the course, is to take students step by step through the research process, from formulating a hypothesis on a topic of their choice, through designing a methodology to answer the question, analyzing data and presenting results. Like other professors at Clark, Hanson works to engage students in learning by asking them to seek solutions to real-world problems.

"I'm a firm believer that no one can learn research methods without actually doing it." Hanson comments. "I could stand there and talk about research methods all day and nobody's going to learn it, really. You only learn it when you have the chance to do it."

Sara Levenson '04 agrees. "It's a lot better than going to a lecture everyday. You get a lot more out of it, and it's opened up a whole new world of opportunities for me," says Levenson, who readily admits that she would not have taken the course if it hadn't been required.

"I never thought I would be interested in something research-oriented. I looked at the class as something I had to take to graduate," she says. "It's changed my options in the future and what I want to do."

Learning by doing is what it's all about. Hanson describes what takes place in her classroom.

"We break the process into little chunks. At every stage students hand in papers, and I and the teaching assistants go over them in great detail. We interact with the students about what's working and what's not working. Then we go on to the next stage. So, the paper is constantly being revised as the students go along."

Working in small groups during class time allows for the cross-fertilization of ideas. Hanson explains how students challenge each other. "You might think that you have a research question that's very clear and very important, but other students in your small group might say, ‘But that's not clear to me,' or ‘I don't see why that's so important.' Then students have to defend their stance, and clarify it for the other students."

Research from Worcester to China

The Worcester region provides many of Hanson's students with a laboratory for research. Encouraged by a fellow student, Levenson, for example, framed her interest in children and playgrounds as a formal research question. She compared children's access to and perceptions of playgrounds in two Worcester neighborhoods, one affluent and one low-income. Other students explored such topics as racial differences in homeownership rates in Worcester, factors contributing to brownfield redevelopment, and how residents and animal-control services respond to encounters with black bears in Worcester County.

Some students chose to set their research in a more global context. Following his interest in the spiritual practice of Falun Gong, Asian studies concentrator Daniel Pomerleau '04 wanted to investigate the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. At Hanson's suggestion, he examined the international networks that publicize the abuse of Falun Gong practitioners and their detention in "laogai"—labor camps. All of these projects illustrate how active learning is inquiry based, with students applying research techniques to a real-world problem and gaining knowledge by trying to find a solution.

A community of learners

Hanson's classroom is a true community of learners at different levels of expertise, which is another important aspect of active learning at Clark. Two doctoral candidates in the Graduate School of Geography, Susannah McCandless and Elizabeth Waitjahni, provided teaching assistance to the course during the spring 2003 semester. Their presence allowed undergraduates to receive more personalized attention and the benefit of other perspectives on their work. When Levenson needed to be sure that children would understand the questions she wanted to include in her playground survey, for instance, McCandless and Waitjahni helped round up the children of friends and neighbors in their Worcester neighborhood—with promises of pizza and ice cream—to provide the necessary feedback.

Many graduate students are continually aware of a tension between the demands of their own research and their responsibilities as teaching or research assistants, which helps support their studies. But for McCandless and Waitjahni, their work with Geography 141 undergraduates has helped their own intellectual development.

Waitjahni notes that the process of assessing undergraduates' work at different stages of the research process allowed her to think about research from new perspectives.

"It made me very sensitive to certain errors that I made and also certain errors that I overlooked. And I think it has enabled me to look critically at my work and other people's work," she says. "Just from that experience I have become a much better editor of papers and articles."

McCandless discovered that she really enjoys editing other people's work. And because the students' research topics often focused on the Worcester community, she had a chance to learn more about the city in which she was living.

"I really love this city," she says. "I had so many questions about how it works and was able to sort of direct those suggestions toward different students according to their interests. I learned a lot about the city."

Inspiration for new work

Both Pomerleau and Levenson have since expanded their Geography 141 research into senior honor's theses.

"It's made my last year here more enjoyable," Levenson says. "I'm more active in the community, which I always wanted to be. I'm working with children, which I love."

Pomerleau describes his perspective on research participation: "It allows you to build your own structure, to do something you're interested in and to use the resources at the University. The professors really allow you to do something individual and new."

Geography faculty keep students engaged in learning

Whether it's a visit to Harvard Forest, New York City, or the Heifer Project, forays "into the field" have always been a key component of geographic learning. But besides field trips, Clark's geography faculty use a variety of methods to keep students actively engaged.

Real-world data

The use of real-world data brings a sense of immediacy to the learning process. Instead of just learning theory, Larry Lewis has his students test those theories against real data, and Gil Pontius's students take measurements of local water quality to use when learning about statistical concepts and methods. Pontius finds that having students use data they've collected themselves can illustrate how personal agendas color their analyses.

"Some students get overwhelmed by their desire to find a guilty environmental polluter—they don't let the data convince them otherwise," he says. "You can get into a lot of conflict by falsely accusing people of being polluters."

Contributing to the community

Community involvement helps students feel that their work has a purpose, an essential component of active learning. The data collected by Pontius' students get added to a long-term database for use by researchers studying the central Massachusetts environment. Students in Jody Emel's hydrology class worked with representatives of Community Water Watch and surveyed local residents about their perceptions of Worcester's Blackstone River and river restoration.

Freedom to explore

Ron Eastman knows that reaching a final conclusion to a research question may take longer than a single semester. Each of his students in Advanced Topics in GIS undertakes a project exploring the parameters of a particular GIS analytical technique or the implications of using different techniques to study a particular question. Eastman grades students on the depth of their exploration rather than the "correctness" of any final conclusion they may reach.

Eastman uses technology to improve the level of student participation in his larger classes. By attaching his laptop computer to a digital projector, Eastman can demonstrate complex spatial analyses for the class as a whole. He encourages students to ask "what if" questions that can be worked through in the classroom, allowing students to collaborate in the thought process of an experienced researcher in real time.

Public exposure

Whether it's presenting work at a professional conference or to classmates, making assignments visible helps students to take their work more seriously. Emel's students assisted Community Water Watch in the creation of a Web site. Eastman requires each Advanced Topics student to present a summary of his or her project in a public poster session. He notes that the number of students taking incompletes has dropped and that the students "come away with a strong sense of achievement."

Community of learners

Many geography faculty realize that, given the right context, a mixture of graduate and undergraduate students can create a more engaging learning environment. Referring to her recent Urban Ecology class, Diane Rocheleau notes, "I had the best time with this group. It's one of those classes that actually does work better with a mixed-level group, from second-year students to Ph.D. candidates. I learn as much as the students do every year. What could be better?"