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<\/a><\/p>\nAfter all, I (probably) have lots to learn when a study makes me think anew.<\/p>\n
In this case — even better! — I’ve found a study that (I suspect) challenges almost everybody’s beliefs.<\/p>\n
Here’s the story…<\/p>\n
The “Active vs. Passive” Debate<\/h2>\n
Education scholars often fiercely advocate for “active learning.”<\/p>\n
This phrase serves as a catchy shorthand for several educational beliefs and practices.<\/p>\n
People who champion a “constructivist” approach to schools, or embrace project pedagogies, or advocate student “voice and choice” often describe their approach this way.<\/p>\n
And, they often point out one crucial benefit to active learning: student “engagement.” Students who shape their own learning feel invested in and energized by their efforts.<\/p>\n
Other scholars zealously dispute this account.<\/p>\n
Whereas their approach has been dismissed as merely “passive learning,” they often prefer phrases such as “direct instruction” to explain their views.<\/p>\n
In this view of learning, limitations on working memory prevent novices from tackling overly complex problems.<\/p>\n
Students benefit from highly structured pedagogy, in which expert teachers help students build mental models (“schema”) and thereby achieve their own expertise.<\/p>\n
For champions of direct instruction, “engagement” might look good (“the students are all so active!”), but doesn’t necessarily result in actual learning. (Why? Because students might well experience working memory overload….)<\/p>\n
If you attended our conference in San Francisco at the beginning of February, you heard speakers embrace both sides of this debate.<\/p>\n
This Does Not Compute<\/h2>\n
A study<\/a> published in 2019 splendidly complicates this tidy summary.<\/p>\n A research team led by Dr. Louis Deslauriers ran a straightforward experiment.<\/p>\n Researchers worked with two groups of students enrolled in an introductory physics class at Harvard.<\/p>\n The first group studied topic A in an “active learning” paradigm, and topic B with a “passive lecture.”<\/p>\n The second group switched that order: topic A was “passive lecture,” and topic B was “active learning.<\/p>\n The research team found a surprising set of results.<\/p>\n Students learned more<\/em> from the “active learning” classes, but enjoyed<\/em> (and thought<\/em> they learned more from<\/em>) the “passive lecture.”<\/p>\n Paradoxically, passive<\/em> learning enhanced engagement<\/em> but reduced understanding<\/em>.\u00a0Active<\/em> learning enhanced learning<\/i>\u00a0but reduced engagement<\/em>.<\/p>\n Almost everyone will find that combination of results surprising, even disappointing.<\/p>\n Members of Team Active Learning<\/strong>, I suspect, predicted that the students would learn more<\/em> when their professors followed that approach. Voila: they did.<\/p>\n And (almost certainly) teachers on that team predicted that active learning would result in higher engagement<\/em>. Yet — as measured in this study — it didn’t.<\/p>\n Students clearly preferred the “passive lecture.”<\/p>\n For instance, survey results show that students wanted other physics courses to be taught with passive lecture\/direct instruction.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The researchers have a hypothesis explaining this puzzling result. They wonder if the additional cognitive challenge created by active learning resulted in “desirable difficulty.”<\/p>\nPuzzle #1 (with a potential explanation)<\/h2>\n