ACTIVE-ating Artificial Intelligence: Integrating Active Learning in an Introductory Course

ACTIVE-ating Artificial Intelligence: Integrating Active Learning in an Introductory Course In spring 2013, several colleagues and I received an award, from the Hrabowski Fund for Innovation1 at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, to create a new classroom, using additional funding donated by BAE Systems and Northrup Grumman. The ACTIVE Center2 is designed to provide a dynamic physical and virtual environment that supports active, collaborative learning; skill mastery through in-class problem solving; and laptop-based in-class laboratory activities. The ACTIVE Center’s design was based on research on the power of collaborative learning to promote student success and retention, particularly for women, underrepresented minorities, and transfer students, who benefit greatly from building stronger connections with their peers through shared active learning experiences (Zhao, Carini, and Kuh 2006; Rypisi, Malcolm, and Kim 2009; Kahveci, Southerland, and Gilmer 2006). The ACTIVE Center, a 40-student classroom, includes movable furniture (20 trapezoidal tables and 40 lightweight rolling chairs) that is typically grouped into 10 hexagonal table clusters but that can also be arranged into lecture-style rows, a boardroom or seminar-style rectangular layout, or individual pair-activity tables. The room also has an Epson Brightlink “smart projector” at the front of the room, four flat-panel displays (which can be driven centrally by the instructor’s laptop or individually through HDMI ports), and 10 rolling 4 x 6 foot whiteboards for use during group problem-solving activities, as well as smaller, portable tabletop whiteboards. The ACTIVE Center was ready for use in early February 2014, and we moved several classes from regular classrooms into the new space, including my undergraduate introduction to AI (CMSC 471). Over the last 12 years of teaching introductory AI, I had gradually moved toward incorporating more problems and