Carnegie Mellon University

Michelene Chi

Michelene "Micki" T.H. Chi

Cognitive and Educational Learning Scientist

Address
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

ICAP is a theory of active learning that differentiates students’ engagement based on their behaviors within the learning environment and the outputs they produce. ICAP postulates that Interactive engagement, demonstrated by collaborative dialogues, is superior for learning than Constructive engagement, indicated by generative behaviors. Both kinds of engagement exceed the benefits of Active or Passive engagement, marked by physically manipulative and attentive behaviors, respectively. This talk will briefly describe ICAP along with two five-year projects that attempted to translate ICAP into a theory of instruction for K-12 teachers, assessing both teachers’ design, teachers’ implementation and students’ learning. We focus in particular on why it is difficult to implement optimal co-constructive ways of collaborative or Interactive engagement. Ideas for how to salvage lecturing in college instruction will also be discussed.