What Active Learning Is Not

I accidentally came across an editorial in The Huffington Post by Keith M. Parsons, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Houston, Clear-Lake. “Message to My Freshman Students” is ostensibly about getting freshmen to buckle down, but in the middle of it lies a harangue about “the flipped classroom.” I’ve excerpted the two paragraphs dismissing active learning as a fad and in the brackets I respond to Parsons’ points:

Lecture has come under attack recently. "Flipped learning" is the current buzz term among higher-education reformers. [I know “buzz-term” is a dismissive phrase, and though I’ve never cared for the term “flipped learning” either, as a strategy it works.] We old-fashioned chalk-and-talk professors are told that we need to stop being the "sage on the stage," but should become the "guide on the side," helping students develop their problem-solving skills. [No, we wouldn’t want that, would we?] Lecture, we are told, is an ineffective strategy for reaching today's young people, whose attention span is measured in nanoseconds. [Actually, this is not the point of active learning. The point is not to “reach today’s young people.” I’d refer you back to Dr. Mazur’s point that lectures can be very interesting and well-received. Reaching isn’t the problem so much as it is retaining. And attention is still very much needed in active learning; it’s just more likely to be maintained.] We should not foolishly expect them to listen to us, but instead cater to their conditioned craving for constant stimulation. [This is the most egregious misrepresentation of what active learning is that I’ve yet come across. It makes teachers using active learning sound more like drug pushers. Maybe the problem, aside from being a round-up of clichés, is that this description is rather general and negative about what stimulation is. Presumably his lectures are then not stimulating? Or are they the good kind of stimulation?]

Hogwash. You need to learn to listen. The kind of listening you need to learn is not passive absorption, like watching TV; it is critical listening. [So you agree that active is better than passive, but you believe in a magical quiet, sitting down activity? And TV should probably not be your bete noir, but rather the internet.] Critical listening means that you are not just hearing but thinking about what you are hearing. Critical listening questions and evaluates what is being said and seeks key concepts and unifying themes. [These are both good points, and were you more aware of what actual active learning is, then you’d know that thinking and evaluating are among are our key goals. The difference, in this case, is that with active learning you don’t just have to rely on your faith that someone is thinking and evaluating. You are actually doing this in the classroom.] Your high school curriculum would have served you better had it focused more on developing your listening skills rather than drilling you on test-taking. [Low bar—no one who takes education seriously gives credence to teaching to the test. This is a poor excuse for a red herring as teaching to the test has nothing to do with active learning.]