Gah, with the forced acronyms.

This study examines student learning outcomes and engagement in a high-tech active learning environment compared to a low-tech active learning environment at both the individual lesson and overall course levels. A quasi-experimental design was employed, where two sections of students in a college Microeconomics course experienced a high-tech active learning classroom, while the other two sections engaged in the same activities in a low-tech classroom. Student perceptions of enjoyment were measured using the ENJOY scale, comprising five subscales: Pleasure, Relatedness, Competence, Challenge/Improvement, and Engagement

A logical extension of active learning pedagogies (e.g., Chickering & Gamson, 1987) are active learning classrooms (e.g., the SCALE-UP & TEAL models). Just as the learning locus has shifted from teacher as sage on the stage to teacher facilitator supporting students’ activity (King, 1993), the architecture of classrooms must also change. We define Active Learning Classrooms (ALCs) as technology-rich collaborative learning environments, which support students’ learning experiences. These innovative spaces are intended to create a student-centered environment that encourages collaboration and communication among learners. Learning becomes distributed across the physical space because there is no definite “front” to the classroom: the teacher desk is often repositioned to the center of the room, if it exists at all, and rows of desks are replaced with group tables. As adapting to supporting students’ needs drives the learning agenda, teachers no longer fully control what will happen in the classroom. Teachers must now manage feedback from multiple streams (visual, aural, oral, technological) and adaptively react adaptively. Such work can be characterized as orchestration, the real-time management of activity, along with the management of classroom resources (e.g., Dillenbourg & Jermann, 2010). As a research topic, orchestration has gaining much interest in the CSCL community (Dillenbourg, 2013). This moment-to-moment management of the constraints of the classroom ecosystem, coupled with the management of the learning, places greater demands on the teacher than traditional classrooms and traditional instruction. Physical space and layout are important orchestrational considerations (Dillenbourg & Jermann, 2010). Where the teacher is located, what the teacher can access does make a difference to the possible interactions and feedback to learners.