No abstract

Research suggests that incorporating diverse active learning approaches, including creative and entertaining activities, into a class helps sustain students' attention and improve their ability to engage with the complex problems of the modern world. This study investigates how two different artistic classroom activities, one based in performing art and one based in visual art, compare to conventional classroom activities with the same broad educational goals. This study finds that artistic classroom activities and conventional activities generally encourage similar understanding of course content, attention, and interest in students. A performing art activity (in the form of a roleplay) encourages more improvement in communication skills than a similar conventional activity. Some students view a disconnect between learning content and learning communication skills, however, so instructors must ensure that students recognize the value of artistic teaching techniques. Suggestions for helping students adapt to new artistic activities are presented.

“Futurology” is the process of forecasting or designing the future, whether that be the near future or far future. College courses rarely explicitly include futurology, even though the content of many courses has implications for the future. To build knowledge on how future-oriented content can be incorporated into educational curriculum, I studied a college course in which students used futurology activities as part of an active learning setup. My study suggests that future-oriented content is appealing to students and helps students develop a sense of control over the future. In order to better introduce students to futurology, instructors must attend carefully to students' unfamiliarity with structured future-oriented thinking, as well as to fatalistic attitudes about the future.