What is ABL

Activity-based instruction involves...activities! This is in opposite of pure lectures. It means hands-on approaches to instruction, using manipulatives to engage multiple senses, as opposed to just listening to a lecture. For instance, I've used notecards in a lesson to teach complete subjects and predicates. On the notecards I wrote (from a prompt) complete subjects and complete predicates, separate from each other, and had the students find their match. As opposed to just listening to me tell them what the differences are, they see them, evaluate them, and synthesize them (reference 'ole Bloom's Taxonomy).




Activity-bases instruction revolves around students learning though hands-on activities. I think that this method can be great, especially for tactile learners. It breaks up the monotony of the basic teacher-led lecture/students listen and take notes system. Let's face it, not all students learn from listening to their teacher drone on for 50-90 minutes a day. Activity-based allows students to demonstrate an understanding of the material and, usually, work with a partner or group, which leads to socialization

I think, however, that this type instruction is better for a group of students who are highly motivated and goal oriented. If not, these activities can result in chaos, because many students consider this "goof off" time. They don't learn anything and they don't create any type of worthwhile product. I've seen this happen way too many times. Recently, I had my students demonstrate their understanding of Beowulf by creating an Anglo-Saxon newspaper. In this newspaper, they had to write an article summarizing the story of Beowulf. The rest was to focus on Anglo-Saxon events, etc. Instead of creating amazing projects, they wasted 90 mins. chatting about their weekends, and then wanted another day to complete the project. What they turned in was trash and demonstrated very little effort or knowledge. In that case, activity-based instruction was a waste of time.


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