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Figure 1a Figure 1b
Figure 1. a: In a student-centered course, DJ Prof mixes multiple modes of instruction: Think-Pair-Share exercises, lecture, video examples, and reading assignments. b: In an instructor-centered course, Popstar Prof presents a lecture with little or no feedback from the students.
ception is rarely sufficient to dislodge that misunderstand- ing. A better approach is to have students confront their misconceptions through exercises that ask them to predict the outcome of an experiment and then carry out that ex- periment and analyze the results. Make it Stick (Brown et al., 2014) grew out of a 10-year project to apply cognitive sci- ence research to improve education. Brown et al. assert that many people use suboptimal learning strategies that are not supported by research, and that “the most effective learning strategies are not intuitive” (p. ix). For example, Brown et al. observe that “trying to solve a problem before being taught the solution leads to better learning,” (p. 4, emphasis origi- nal). Neither of these books provides step-by-step instruc- tions for designing and implementing courses. Rather, they present a set of general principles, derived from research, to create conditions for effective learning.
Many university courses are still taught in the standard lec- ture format. The lecture is an ancient form of instruction, dating back to at least medieval times in western European universities (see Figure 2). As Professor Joe Redish of the University of Maryland points out, lecture predates the printing press (Hanford, 2011). An instructor would read a manuscript to students so that the students could make cop- ies for themselves. In a world without printed books, this makes perfect sense. In a world with not only books but also an Internet full of articles, podcasts, TED talks (www.ted.com),
and YouTube videos (www.youtube.com), is lecture the best way to educate students? To answer this question, consider several analyses of student learning in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) courses.
Benefits of Active Learning
Hake (1998) compared student learning in traditional lecture-based physics courses with learning in interactive engagement (IE) courses. He defines IE courses as those that are designed to “promote conceptual understanding through interactive engagement of students in heads-on (always) and hands-on (usually) activities which yield im- mediate feedback through discussion with peers and/or in- structors” (Hake, 1998, p. 65). For our purposes, we consider IE to be synonymous with active learning. Hake focused on Newtonian mechanics courses and used data from the force concept inventory (FCI) (Hestenes et al., 1992) in the analysis. A concept inventory (CI) is a multiple-choice exam designed to test student understanding of the core concepts in a subject area. CI questions require few, if any, compu- tations, and the wrong answers (distractors) elicit common student misconceptions. In Hake’s (1998) study, students took the FCI twice: before the start of the course and then at its conclusion. Hake used the pretest and posttest averages to define the average gain in conceptual understanding due to instruction: gain = (Post-Pre)/(100-Pre). The gain represents
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