Sociology of Neighborhoods is an undergraduate-level sociology course in which learners gain general knowledge about the ecological effects of neighborhoods on social processes such as health or education while practicing basic skills in spatial reasoning through software and ethnographic methods.
What defines active approaches to learning is that they require the learner to exhibit a degree of agency and self-regulation that is not usually fostered when learners remain passive recipients of content knowledge transmitted to them by lecturers, readings, etc. It is when learners engage in an authentic activity, reflect on the new knowledge inherent in completing an authentic task, and share their findings in a polished product or performance, that knowledge is actively constructed (Herrington et al., 2010).
Drawing on research in the learning sciences, the development of 21st Century Skills is correlated with the broad family of social-constructivist approaches that challenge educators to move the degree of directedness from a direct instruction model towards more inquiry-based approaches, such as problem-based, project-based, and authentic learning opportunities (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 2008; ; Darling-Hammond, 2015; Guerriero, 2017; Herrington, Reeves, & Oliver, 2010; Hoadley, 2011; Laurillard, 2002; Hung & Khine, 2006; Mishra, 2012).