Active participation of students in the teaching process is a prerequisite for meaningful and effective learning, which leads to an understanding of the curriculum, longer-lasting knowledge and at the same time to critical thinking.
Students need to be aware of their own thinking while using their own language to express what they have learned and understood through active thinking, writing or speaking.
However, a necessary part of the teaching process is also arousing attention, drawing students into the topic and arousing interest in education.
Finally, the teaching process must include consolidating the acquired knowledge and applying the acquired knowledge.
To achieve these goals, the so-called E–U–R framework for active learning was followed. It consists of three phases (Bocan, 2012):
1. Evocation – students actively recall their knowledge of the topic. As a result, they are forced to examine their own knowledge base and consider the topic separately, which they then examine in detail. Through the first activity, the student creates a base of individual knowledge, to which they will add new information. This is important for creating lasting knowledge that is based on what the student knows and understands.
2. Awareness of meaning – the student is actively involved in the teaching process, which leads to meaningful learning and critical understanding leading to longer-lasting knowledge. The student must be aware of his or her own thinking, using his or her own language, and then express what he or she has learned and understood through active thinking, writing, or speaking.
3. Reflection – students consolidate new knowledge and actively change their understanding patterns to match the new information they have learned. Only at this stage do they actually “master” the curriculum and this is when permanent knowledge arises. At this stage, students begin to express in their own words their thoughts and the information they have encountered. Another important result of this phase is that there is an exchange of ideas between students, which expands their active vocabulary and presents different schemes of understanding so that the students can compare with each other.
The E–U–R framework for active learning and thinking aims to increase the involvement of those involved in the learning process and their active learning. When students use this framework for independent thinking and learning, they will be able to combine new knowledge with that already known, actively engage in a new way of learning and consider how this new learning experience will change their understanding of the curriculum. It offers a conceptual basis for teaching, which can be implemented systematically in different grades and in different topics of education (Petrasová, 2020). Digital technologies make it possible to meet the set objectives in the individual phases of the E–U–R framework more effectively and thus achieve better overall results in teaching and learning.
BOCAN, B.: Informačno-komunikačné technológie vo vyučovaní geografie. Krompachy : Gymnázium Lorencova, 2012.
PETRASOVÁ, A.: EUR – rámec pre aktívne učenie sa a myslenie. Bratislava : Výskumný ústav detskej psychológie a patopsychológie, 2020.