by Sarah B. Ottow

“Active learning” has become one of those phrases we hear often in education—but not always with enough clarity.

Too often, active learning gets reduced to whether students are talking, moving, or participating in something visible. And while those things can matter, they do not automatically mean learning is active in any meaningful sense.

Students can be busy and still be passive.

They can complete tasks, turn and talk, fill out organizers, or rotate through activities without doing much real thinking. They can follow directions, stay engaged, and look productive while still remaining fairly passive in relation to the actual learning.

To me, the difference between active and passive learning is not just about what students are doing on the surface. It is about the level of cognitive engagement underneath it.

Passive learning happens when students are mainly receiving, repeating, identifying, or complying without needing to make much meaning for themselves. Active learning happens when students are making sense of ideas, connecting concepts, explaining their thinking, using language with purpose, and doing the intellectual work of learning rather than just completing the task.

That distinction matters. Because in many classrooms, what looks active is not always producing deep learning. A student may be participating, but not really processing. They may be answering, but not explaining. They may be engaged in the activity, but not fully accessing the thinking behind it.

This is why I pay so much attention not just to participation and being compliant, but to what students are being asked to think about, say, and do. Real active learning requires more than visible engagement. It requires clarity, purpose, and instructional design that invites students into meaningful thinking.

The goal is not simply to make learning look active. The goal is to make sure students are actively making meaning. That’s what true learning is!