Patrick Bijsmans and Afke Groen of the Department of Political Science – and the editors of the FASoS Teaching & Learning Blog – contributed a post to the ‘Active Learning in Political Science’ blog. Patrick and Afke argue that silence in PBL and active learning isn’t just a problem, but can also have a positive contribution to the group process. In addition, many silent students actually are not ‘free-riding’, but contribute in different ways.
Tutors can even use silence as a strategy for knowledge construction and group learning, without by default identifying silent learners as problematic learners or even ‘free-riders’.
