Engagement and Active Learning : Hands-On to Mind-On
PIDP 3250 - Instructional Strategies
Assignment 1: Reflective Writing - Part 2
Chapter 3: Engagement and Active Learning
Submitted by : Deepa Bhatia Dhingra
Student ID: 000507596
Vancouver Community College
Submitted to: Chris Carroll
June 22, 2026
This reflection is based on the quote : "New information results in meaningful learning only when it connects with what already exists in the mind of the learner" (Barkley & Major, 2020, p. 22).
Objective : What is this quote or idea about? What caught your attention?
The above mentioned quote captures the key message of Chapter 3. It simply challenges every teacher's assumption about what they do. Moving from transfering of information from instructor to student, it emphasizes that learning occurs when students actively connect new ideas to their existing knowledge, experiences, and understanding of the world.
As Angelo and Cross (1993, as cited in Barkley & Major, 2020) remind us, “teaching without learning is just talking” (p. 3). This shifts the focus from what the instructor teaches to how learners make meaning from what is being taught.
The chapter also builds a compelling case for active learning not as a teaching trend or classroom technique, but as a biological and cognitive necessity.
From neuroscience, we learn that the brain stores learning as networks of neurons that fire together and that repetition strengthens those networks while disuse dissolves them. When adults encounter new information, they either assimilate it into existing networks (if it fits) or accommodate it by restructuring what they already know (Svinicki, 2004, as cited in Barkley & Major, 2020).
From cognitive psychology, Cross (1999, as cited in Barkley & Major, 2020) introduces the concept of schema - organised mental structures built from facts, ideas, and associations accumulated through lived experience. The richer the schema, the more easily new information is absorbed.
The chapter also identifies two important dimensions of transfer :
-The brain's ability to apply prior learning to new situations : A. Positive transfer occurs when existing knowledge accurately supports new learning. B. Negative transfer occurs when it misleads.
- Near and Far Transfer : A. Near transfer happens automatically when situations look alike. B. Far transfer occurs when students take what they have learned and use it in a different real-world situation, requiring them to think more deeply and make new connections. This often requires instructors to intentionally design learning activities that support those connections.
Finally, Sousa (2006) explains that there are two key factors that influence long-term memory: sense and meaning. Meaning plays more important role as the information that is personally meaningful is much more likely to be remembered than information that only makes logical sense.
Reflective : Why did you choose this quote or idea? How do you identify with it?
This idea resonated with me immediately and personally. Across my 36 year career in media sales, advertising, and leadership, I spent a significant amount of time training junior sales professionals. They often came with product knowledge but struggled to translate it into meaningful client conversations and real-world selling situations. I now realize it was often disconnected from the learners’ existing understanding. Most trainees had no prior schema for selling television sponsorships, so the information had no place to “attach” to pre-existing mental files.
The sessions that truly worked were where I asked trainees to recall a moment when they had persuaded someone truly. Through this, they could access a personal experience of influence or persuasion. That existing schema became the bridge. From there, new concepts for TV advertising sales could be meaningfully layered on top.
Reading Barkley and Major (2020), I recognise that what I was doing instinctively in those better sessions was activating prior schema before introducing new content. What I was doing in the weaker ones was ignoring schema entirely and wondering why nothing stayed with them.
This reflection strongly connects to my own learning as well. As I engage with Chapter 3, I find myself naturally linking concepts such as schema, transfer, and memory to real experiences in sales training and leadership. These connections are what make the theory meaningful rather than abstract.
This reflection also made me think about learners who struggle in classrooms. Before reading this chapter, I often viewed disengagement as a lack of effort or interest. Now I recognize that students may simply be unable to see how new information connects to what they already know. Without that connection, learning becomes difficult and sometimes frustrating.
Interpretive : What does it mean to you? What insights did you get from the quote or idea? How has your thinking changed by reflecting on this quote or idea?
This chapter changed something fundamental in how I think about preparing to teach. Barkley and Major (2020) explain that learners build understanding through existing schemata and prior experiences. The question I would earlier ask myself was : how do I explain this clearly? The question I need to ask now is: what do my learners already know, and how do I build from there?
The discussion of transfer was particularly meaningful to me. The chapter explains that learning becomes more powerful when students can transfer knowledge from one situation to another. In sales, this happens when a learner applies a negotiation strategy learned in class to a real client meeting, whether for TV or for digital advertising sales. The principle is identical. The context looks completely different.
I was also fascinated by the neuroscience behind learning and Sousa's (2006, as cited in Barkley & Major, 2020) finding about meaning versus sense. A student can follow the logic of a selling framework perfectly well and still would have forgotten it entirely by the following week. But a student who can see clearly and personally knows that framework will change their very next client conversation is far more likely to carry it forward. This means that every concept I introduce needs a genuine, specific answer to the question my learners are silently carrying: why does this matter to me, right now? The 24-hour retention window made this urgency impossible to ignore. The greatest loss of newly acquired learning occurs in the first 18 to 24 hours (Sousa, 2006, as cited in Barkley & Major, 2020).
This chapter strengthened my belief that adult learners bring tremendous value into the classroom. Cross (1999, as cited in Barkley & Major, 2020) describes schema as an organised mental structure built from lived experience and adult learners in a sales management course arrive with extraordinarily rich ones. Every client relationship, every negotiation, every campaign that worked and every one that did not, all of that is schema. It is the instructional foundation, upon which new learning is built.
The biggest shift this chapter produced in me is this: meaningful learning does not begin with content. It begins with the learner. Their prior experience is not a variable to manage around, it is the very ground on which new understanding must be built. As Barkley and Major (2020) conclude, students need to do the work required to learn, and my role is to set up the conditions that make that work possible, purposeful, and personally meaningful.
Decisional : How can this new or enhanced interpretation be applied to your professional practice?
As a future instructor in sales management, this chapter has left me with commitments I intend to carry into every lesson I design.
The first is to always start with the learner, not the content. Before introducing any new concept I will open with a question that invites students to surface what they already know and have tried. Cross (1999, as cited in Barkley & Major, 2020) reminds us that new information only becomes meaningful when it connects to existing schema.
The second is to anchor every concept in something real. Adult learners in sales and media already possess rich real life sales experiences with clients and media agencies. I will use the same coupled with authentic industry case studies and build my teaching on that because Sousa (2006, as cited in Barkley & Major, 2020) is clear that meaning, personal relevance is the more powerful determinant of long-term retention.
The third is to build in retrieval before moving forward. I will begin every session by briefly returning to what was introduced in the previous one - a short reflection prompt, a peer discussion, a quick application question.
And finally, I will measure my success as an instructor not by how much content I cover, but by how effectively my students connect with it. “Students must do the work of learning themselves. We can help them by setting up conditions where they are doing more of the work" (Barkley & Major, 2020, p. 28). My role is not to deliver information but to create the conditions in which learners discover, connect, and build understanding that is genuinely their own.
To me, the heart of teaching is to help people build new understanding on the foundation of everything they have already lived and learned. When those connections are made well and they carry genuine personal meaning, learning becomes not just memorable, but transformative.
References
Angelo, T. A., & Cross, K. P. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass.
Barkley, E. F., & Major, C. H. (2020). Student engagement techniques: A handbook for college faculty (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass.
Cross, K. P. (1999). Learning is about making connections. The Cross Papers, 3. League for Innovation in the Community College.
Sousa, D. A. (2006). How the brain learns (3rd ed.). Corwin Press.
Svinicki, M. D. (2004). Learning and motivation in the postsecondary classroom. Anker Publishing.