You might be right. It's certainly possible there are "great" active learning programs out there, and my anecdotal experience is definitely just that -- anecdotal. (And even, second-hand.)
That said, I've personally experienced great teaching supplemented by great lectures, and I've not personally experienced great active learning.
I studied computer science and philosophy undergrad. I had great professors and not-so-great professors in each. The excellent ones had excellent lectures that I still think back on today, years later. Plus, as a typical
programming auto-didact, I learn a ton from recorded lectures/talks on YouTube and similar channels. I wouldn't trade these resources for the world. I can remember a handful of classes that had more of a group/collaborative feel to them. I don't think I'd describe any of them, in retrospect, as "successful" classes.
I remember one, in particular -- an algorithms class -- where the professor had just done a long sabbatical in Japan and was trying to cargo cult the group/collaborative learning techniques he witnessed there in his algorithms class, yielding hilarious (and definitely not effective) results. That was the one class where I had to pull an all-nighter at the library, cramming from Sedgewick's "Algorithms" textbook (which wasn't assigned by the professor, but every student had passed around as the right way to learn this stuff) and the odd Wikipedia page. All this effort to pass the final exam -- because I felt like I had spent an entire semester witnessing an educational experiment, rather than learning anything.
I imagine many people are in the same boat as me in terms of their experience levels here. Lots of experience with successful lectures, very little experience with successful group learning environments. Certainly, lots of experience with good and bad teaching all-around, where "style" doesn't seem to be the critical issue.
I am afraid too many of these institution-wide shifts to "active learning" are being made on little more than well-intentioned hopeful faith.
See, I've had the opposite experience. I can't remember anything from the vast majority of lectures - I either make notes, which means I'm missing material while I'm writing, or I don't take notes, and don't remember much of anything at all. Lectures are nothing but a huge waste of my time.
Now, recorded lectures, on the other hand, are superior. Combined with the ability to directly contact the lecturer, it would be an infinitely more successful method of learning for me.
Perhaps the way forward is the way my medical school does it - 3 different pathways: lecture-based, problem-based, and self-study. Let each student choose the path best for them.
I agree. Not to be too cute about it, but I think "multi-paradigm" education, rather than single-paradigm, is definitely the way to go, as we've even learned in programming. We all remember what happened in programming when people suggested we write 100% of programs in an object-oriented style (Java, EJBs, etc.).
These days, we are much more mature about "best tool for the job" -- OO design for state/behavior binding APIs or data structures; FP for concurrency/parallel computation; simple imperative style for mission-critical code that needs to be read/reviewed by many, etc. (among other examples.)
I don't think it's controversial to think that in something as complex as human education, there may be multiple learning tools available to us. We should avail ourselves of each of them.
The recorded lecture, the live lecture, the class Q&A, the take-home assignment, the group study, the deep reading, the thoughtful essay, etc. Put it all on the table. Don't ban any one form out of some trend while declaring, "the lecture is dead!"
I also agree with you that it might also be the case that by allowing some amount of tailoring/personalization per student (a la Khan), we could probably get very good average results, since students can smooth over some of the rough patches where the more dominant teaching style is failing them individually. For example, I personally found it much easier to learn Linear Algebra by working through my problems in Matlab. I noticed other students did just fine with working out the math on pen-and-paper, but I needed the iterative and visual feedback to really grok what was going on. It feels "obvious" to me that different students learn differently -- and different topics demand different learning environments! Why are we trying to shoehorn every student and every topic into a single dominant style?
That said, I've personally experienced great teaching supplemented by great lectures, and I've not personally experienced great active learning.
I studied computer science and philosophy undergrad. I had great professors and not-so-great professors in each. The excellent ones had excellent lectures that I still think back on today, years later. Plus, as a typical programming auto-didact, I learn a ton from recorded lectures/talks on YouTube and similar channels. I wouldn't trade these resources for the world. I can remember a handful of classes that had more of a group/collaborative feel to them. I don't think I'd describe any of them, in retrospect, as "successful" classes.
I remember one, in particular -- an algorithms class -- where the professor had just done a long sabbatical in Japan and was trying to cargo cult the group/collaborative learning techniques he witnessed there in his algorithms class, yielding hilarious (and definitely not effective) results. That was the one class where I had to pull an all-nighter at the library, cramming from Sedgewick's "Algorithms" textbook (which wasn't assigned by the professor, but every student had passed around as the right way to learn this stuff) and the odd Wikipedia page. All this effort to pass the final exam -- because I felt like I had spent an entire semester witnessing an educational experiment, rather than learning anything.
I imagine many people are in the same boat as me in terms of their experience levels here. Lots of experience with successful lectures, very little experience with successful group learning environments. Certainly, lots of experience with good and bad teaching all-around, where "style" doesn't seem to be the critical issue.
I am afraid too many of these institution-wide shifts to "active learning" are being made on little more than well-intentioned hopeful faith.