Promoting Active Learning in Universities: Thematic Peer Group Report

This report provides an overview of findings of an EUA Thematic
Peer Group (hereafter “the group”; see also Annex)1
that was invited to discuss ways to promote active learning in universities.
The most notable strength of this group is that it carried out what its own topic advocates: each participating university was also expected to nominate a student to take part in the group’s work. The students also compiled a report summarising their observations from the group discussions and this has been used as inspiration for this report. The group’s considerations and findings are furthermore in line with EUA’s Principles for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching.

Due to the diversity of existing approaches to active learning in higher education, the group chose not to establish a single definition of active learning. Rather, diverse aspects of the concept were considered and embraced, with cases from participating universities shared as good-practice examples.
This is aimed to allow readers of this report to consider diverse approaches to active learning and how they can be implemented. Before developing the findings of the group, it is worth exploring briefly the concept of active learning and reasons why the group considered it essential for universities to adopt active learning.