From Lecture to Deep Learning:
This website was built to help other faculty members convert their traditional lecture courses into a deep, engaged, learning experience that eliminates lecture as the first introduction of the material. This is NOT flipped teaching, but rather a way of teaching a class that lets students discover the material by themselves and from other students. It is a team based/project based approach that uses group annotation of reading assignments as the first introduction of the material.
The methods presented here are based on the class that Professor Eric Mazur at Harvard University has developed for his introductory Applied Physics class, AP50. I have adopted this approach for an introductory Materials Science and Engineering Class at the University of Michigan. This past year I developed a simple workflow to help other faculty quickly adopt many or all of the techniques to convert their traditional lecture classes to a deep learning environment. It is based on a year long Faculty Fellows project in the U. Michigan College of Engineering where 6 faculty members were coached as they used most of the methods described below.
I hope that you find this useful and would always be happy to answer any questions you may have about the methods. - Steve Yalisove
Traditional lecture been shown over and over again to be an inefficient use of time and rarely leads to deep learning or retention[1]. Active learning methodologies, peer instruction, guided inquiry, team based learning, project based learning, and many other engaged approaches have been shown to be far more effective methods for student retention, understanding of concepts, and the ability to quickly relearn and apply material presented in a class[2]. This website is focused, not on the efficacy of any of these methods, but rather on an attempt to package proven pedagogies in a way that would be relatively easy for engineering faculty at a research school to adopt.
Many active learning proponents suggest that faculty try one or two of the methods interleaved with their traditional approach. Many other proponents tell faculty to cut material from their traditional syllabus so that the students will learn more about less. The problem is that most faculty cannot get over this concept and will not adopt a method that gets in the way of their lecture or, in words too often spoken, "dumb the class down”[3]. The approach that will be developed here addresses these issues by recommending that all lecture be eliminated as the first introduction to the material, and that the traditional syllabus be covered. In fact, the collection of methods discussed here simply transforms a traditional stand and deliver lecture course into a highly engaged, peer instruction, team and project based learning course that also eliminates 90% of the summative assessment in favor of formative assessment and feedback. But, the most compelling reasons for faculty to adopt these methods is that it will end up taking less of their time, result in far deeper student learning, and be a lot of fun.
Can a simple workflow be developed to help faculty adopt an aggressive active learning/team based learning environment in their classes?
The approach described below was adopted from a freshman physics course that was developed by Professor Eric Mazur at Harvard University. Eric was the first educator to use audience response systems and creator of the Peer Instruction method[4] (also commonly called Think-Pair-Share). Eric has been inventing and borrowing many highly engaged learning methods for the last 30 years. While these methods were applied to physics classes they are not as widely practiced in the Engineering community. A few years ago I visited Eric's class and began to work with him and his graduate students to reboot an introduction to materials science course taught to 800 students a year in several smaller sections. We have now taught the course three times, first to 57 students and then twice to 74 students. We have also taught a graduate level Electron Microscopy course and an undergraduate Characterization course using this approach. Eric has been an excellent mentor throughout the process and continues to help us as we are working with 6 other engineering faculty members to adopt and develop these methods. This project was supported by the college of engineering which provided a course buy out, a little summer salary, and some funds to permit the PI to mentor 6 other faculty.