Active Learning for Autodidacts

Tips and tricks from the rare professors who refuse to lecture

Jean Béraud, La Brasserie d’Étudiants, 1889

I often argue that well-chosen podcasts do a better job of presenting academic content than many, if not most, of the lectures delivered at colleges and universities. In this post, I offer links to the work of people within academia who are trying to provide their students with alternatives to conventional lectures.

I do this for two reasons. First, I wish to give credit to the noble desesperados who, despite their hopeless positions, are trying to do the right thing. Second, I think that learning about different teaching methods will help autodidacts develop ways of learning that meed their particular needs.

In Confessions of a Converted Lecturer, physics professor Erik Mazur tells the tale of students who were very good at "plugging" numbers into formulas and "chugging" those formulas to get the right answer, but did not understand either the underlying concepts or their application.  (Readers who are wondering if the video is worth watching can get a preview of sorts from the following article.)

In Memorization or Understanding:  Are We Teaching the Right Thing?, Professor Mazur covers the same ground in a somewhat different way.

In this article, from Wired magazine, another physics professor makes the simple argument that the widespread availability of academic videos makes the lecture obsolete.

Readers wondering if the problems Professor Mazur describes extend into subjects other than physics will find much of interest in Twenty Terrible Reasons for Lecturing.

This study argues that courses in science, engineering, and mathematics that employ interactive learning methods do a better job of preparing students for examinations than comparable lecture-based courses. This article, published on the PBS website in 2014, provides a précis of the findings of the study.

A more recent study describes what might be called the "active learning paradox."  (While students reported that they learned more from conventional lectures, their performance on tests indicated that they were far better able to recall material acquired in the course of active learning exercises of a type pioneered by Eric Mazur.)  (This article summarizes the study.)