This week's Guest Blogger is Christina Burden . Christina Burden is a doctoral degree candidate in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Neuroscience. She has a strong interest in innovative teaching and making time in the classroom effective for students with all learning styles. Her research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of learning and memory in honey bees and how toxic chemicals disrupt these processes. One of the strengths of active learning is the potential for helping students bridge the gap between a library of facts they must memorize and a conceptual understanding how those facts fit into a working biological system, like a neuron generating an action potential. I do not have a magical formula for creating active learning exercises that morph students’ understanding of a concept from a “mental fact library” to a “mental IMAX.” But, I will share three principles I use to help me avoid some common mistakes that can reduce the effectiveness of active lear...