Hot on the heels of a widely publicized study last month that found cooperative learning to be more effective than lecturing (see Surprise, Surprise! Study Says Cooperative Learning Is More Effective Than Lectures), another similar study was unveiled today with great fanfare.
Interactive Learning Closes College Science Achievement Gap–On a Shoestring Budget is the headline of a Scientific American article about the report, which reached the same conclusions.
As I mentioned in my post about last month’s report, there’s already tons of research documenting this fact. And I always welcome research that supports my beliefs 🙂 (maybe a little confirmation bias here?). I wonder, though, why are people making such a big deal about these new studies now?
Larry – a lot of this research is about teaching at the college level. What we’ve known in K12 for years is finally making its way to college classrooms, where the norm was mostly lecture, lecture and more lecture unless you were lucky enough to have a seminar. Better late than never.