ASU Launches New, High-Tech Learning Environment for Life Science Students

Newswise - As Arizona State University's spring semester begins, students studying life sciences will learn about subjects such as evolution, neurobiology, and genetics in a new, high-tech classroom designed to promote "active learning."

Rather than listening passively to a lecture in an auditorium, students will work in small groups on "student-centered" learning exercises - facilitated by faculty and teaching assistants who are trained in active learning teaching methods. Research shows this highly structured approach enhances long-term conceptual learning and student success. In addition, by being actively engaged with course content, peers, and instructors, students recognize that learning is their responsibility.

"There's a national movement - a critical mass moving away from the lecturing style where we know students really only retain five to 10 percent of the material, to a more student-centered approach," says Miles Orchinik, associate director for ASU's School of Life Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. "On a large scale, research has shown great student success when traditional lecture classrooms are transformed into something like this. Instead of being a passive recipient of the information, students actually have to actively engage with the science concepts we are teaching."