Part 1: Active Learning

In 1914, Charles Pajeau, a stonemason from Evanston, Illinois, watching kids play with pencils, sticks, and empty wooden thread spools, invented "Tinkertoys."

It would be impossible to prove a connection between the popularity of Tinkertoys and America's long-time lead in the number of patents granted or Nobel prizes awarded, but neither is it unreasonable to wonder if there might be a connection. Those who grew up playing with Tinkertoys and Erector Sets, whittling toys from wood scraps, building vehicles from old roller skates, playing cowboys and Indians with homemade guns shooting bands cut
from old tire inner tubes, or assembling model airplanes from kits rather than merely snapping together plastic parts, were engaged in mind-stretching activities. They were active problem solvers, builders, creators, constructors, doers.

That all this activity was voluntary—that it took no adult scheduling or encouragement-surely says something important about human nature. Unfortunately, other than in some extra-curricular activities, traditional schooling pretty much ignores the need to solve problems and puzzles, resolve anomalies, imagine and construct, make the mistakes essential to experimentation and creativity. It rewards passive absorption of existing information rather than active discovery of new information.

Confronting a passage in a conventional history textbook, kids take it for granted that they're supposed to read, figure out what the author and the teacher think is important, underline or hi-lite it, then store it in memory, at least long enough to pass a test. Period. "In MY class, you're going to have to THINK," says the teacher with a hint of threat, then piles on more words to be remembered.

Kids WANT to think—WANT to infer, hypothesize, generalize, synthesize, value, and so on, and traditional instruction often fails them. Learning, to be effective, must actively involve the learner. We’ll illustrate this fundamental principle in the student materials that follow (Investigation: Planning a Spanish Town).