engleski

Active Learning in Classrooms

The competence-based approach to teaching emphasizes the importance of active learning, which creates a high level of autonomy, self-monitoring, and the application of various cognitive strategies to differentiate between important and unimportant information, analyse and compare, construct new knowledge on the previous experiences and think critically. The aim of the research presented in this paper was to find out whether contemporary classrooms serve as a context for active learning intended to develop students’ competences. A study was conducted with the students in grade 4 and 8. The intention was to explore the presence of active learning strategies and their frequency in the subject Croatian language. The differences in active learning strategies based on school type and students’ age were also looked into. The results suggest that the Croatian language lessons are characterised by pleasant emotions, cooperative learning, students’ initiative, along with firm teacher’s authority, but also critical thinking and diverse teaching and learning activities. There is a statistically significant difference between younger and older students suggesting that active learning strategies are more present among the fourth-graders than the eight-graders, especially in the schools where pre-service teachers go to practice their teaching skills with their teacher -mentors (partner schools).

student competences; classroom; teaching methods; active learning strategies; constructivism

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