The Generative Activity Principle states that people learn better when they are guided to carry out generative learning activities.
Putting the Generative Activity Principle into practice:
Meaningful learning involves actively making sense of the learning material by organizing and integrating it with one’s relevant existing knowledge. Create activities that help learners process information and transfer the content into long-term memory.
Examples of generative activities include retrieval activities, where learners must retrieve information from memory to complete an activity. Research has shown that asking learners to orally summarize information without their notes is especially effective at promoting long-term memory access of information. Similarly, asking learners to generate drawings after instruction without their notes has also shown promising results in this area.