A Reward-based Active Learning Approach for Motivating and Engaging Students in a Large Classroom

Abstract

Student engagement activities in the teachinglearning process have shown drastic developments and have helped not only in the exchange of information among students but also in the creation of knowledge. Active learning activities in teaching will allow students to participate in the learning process by reflecting on what they have learned. This can also include students working cooperatively in pairs or groupsWhether it is about understanding concepts from the lectures or the implementation of concept-related information from the textbooks, group activities are of great use, especially while handling large classes. Group activity like in-class teams helps students to exchange information among their peers.The purpose of the activity is to motivate the students and eep them engaged for the entire session. The in-class group activity proposed here is a reward-based approach which was a major motivation for the students and the competitive spirit among the teams kept them engaged in noting down the points being discussed in class and gathering information throughout the session.The students of the class showed a better understanding of the concepts and good performance during the assessment. This paper describes the effective deployment of active learning to enhance the attention span of the students and keep them engaged for the entire session and thereby provides effective Outcome-Based Education (OBE). The results show that the attainment of the students' performance is enhanced. Moreover, it improves team spirit and team performance through cooperative learning.