During my time on the MAA Instructional Practices Guide project team, we drew heavily on the 2014 Freeman et al. meta-study, “Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics.” This study is often simplified to “active learning is good; lecturing is bad.”
However, our perspective on this has evolved. The debate between lecturing and active learning isn’t a binary choice but rather a nuanced blend of both approaches. The recent article “Which Is Better, Active Learning or Lecture? It’s Not So Simple” delves into this complexity. This concept isn’t new; our fall faculty speaker, Todd Zakraisjik, author of “Dynamic Lecturing,” highlighted this during his workshop. We have extra copies of his book at the Center for those who missed it. Drop by the Center to pick one up for some informative reading over the break.