Changing practices for a global society: voices of students, teachers, principals and university teacher educators on active learning

Abstract

In responding to globalisation, Irish curricula advocate active learning and cooperative groupwork methods in second-level schools but there are many difficulties in implementing them. This paper explores the experiences and perspectives of teachers, students, principals and university teacher educators and is based on a recent qualitative study. All respondents reported that there are major constraints to the use of these methods. Implementation of active learning methods requires an exploration, within a context of continuous professional development, of teacher values and motivation, of goals and contrasting paradigms in education, and of ways of building democratic structures and relationships within schools.

The author is grateful to Mr Jim Callan of the National University of Ireland, Maynooth and Ms Josephine Boland of the National University of Ireland, Galway for their invaluable support and insights in completing the study and this paper.