No Good Answers

Passive learning is what most of us grew up with. Usually, it meant the teacher spoke, we listened and took notes. And every once in a while, as Alex Tabarrok writes, we were “entertained by a great lecturer who makes everything seem simple”. Unfortunately, it’s also the mode of learning where we don’t learn much or well.

The alternative form, active learning, is interactive and yes, hard. And while students learn more via this technique, unfortunately it also turns out that:

“(Students) dislike this style of class and think they learn less. It’s no big surprise–active learning is hard and makes the students feel stupid.”

Which is why, as per one study, it would help if teachers keep repeating the following point when they follow active learning:

“The success of active learning will be greatly enhanced if students accept that it leads to deeper learning—and acknowledge that it may sometimes feel like exactly the opposite is true.”

You’d think this difference in how effective active learning is v/s how it feels like wouldn’t be an issue in Western countries. After all, in the West, aren’t teachers evaluated by their students? You’d be wrong.

That’s because students tend to base their evaluations based on how the course felt now rather than how effective it proves in the long run. Plus, they’re students:

“Student evaluations measure how well liked the teacher is.”

All of which is why Tabarrok laments:

“To the extent that they rely on student evaluations, universities are incentivizing teachers to teach in ways that the students like rather than in ways that promote learning.”

On the other hand, in India, no feedback is taken on teachers, and that model doesn’t work either. It’s sad that nobody anywhere seems to be able to fix the education problem. So for now, we just have to keep trying different things…