In the regular classroom, students learn from teacher who is the center of the class.  In fact, the university students came from different schools and have different background. Some students might need more assistant while the others might need to learn something more than what the teachers teach in the classes. The latter student is the active learner.

Active learning is the method that helps active learners to learn what they want to learn in the class. Active learning can be conducted in the active learning classroom where the environment is built to serve the active learning style and it can be everywhere as well, such as in the regular classroom, coffee shop, restaurant, and public places.

No matter where the active learning is conducted, the guidance from the teacher is the most important concern. The teacher must be able to understand the performance of each student and understand how to extend the skill and knowledge of each student in order to support each of them to maximize his/her ability. To achieve this, the teachers have to put more efforts in learning new things, updating themselves, opening their minds, and guiding each student in different way.

From my experience in using active learning method for a year, active learning is not suitable for regular and passive learners at all because these learners have the weak theoretical background and might apply it incorrectly in practical.  They need to improve their theoretical background to ensure that they understand things correctly and clearly before using active learning method with them. Otherwise, they will be weak in both theoretical and practical parts of the lessons.

In my opinion, the combination of regular and active learning is the most effective teaching and learning method. At the beginning of the class or a new topic, regular learning method (such as lecture) should be used to explain the concepts and ideas to the students in order to ensure that all students in the class understand the same concepts and ideas correctly and clearly. After that, active learning method can be used to help each student to practice and learn new things based on the interest.

Active learning is difficult for both teachers and students at the beginning but it would be easier when it is used more often until everyone gets used to it. At the end, active learning can be conducted anytime and anywhere we want.