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What is different about discussion-based teaching and what are the challenges? Prof. Jim Austin leads a discussion. 34 minutes.

An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching. 

“At the heart of responding strategies is this: all students want to know that they have been heard. You don’t have to agree always with what a student has said, but it’s a good idea to acknowledge in some way that you have heard and…

“If you’re like many people, you may find interpreting and writing about cases mystifying and time-consuming. In The Case Study Handbook, Revised Edition, William Ellet presents a potent new approach for efficiently analyzing, discussing, and…

“The class discussion inherent in case teaching is well known for stimulating the development of students’ critical thinking skills, yet instructors often need guidance on managing that class discussion to maximize learning. Teaching with…

“To outsiders, medical school may conjure up images of a cavernous amphitheater with a white-coated, white-haired professor holding forth. But in a small classroom at the University of Vermont’s medical school, the professor has little to…

“A new study finds that undergraduate students in classes with traditional stand-and-deliver lectures are 1.5 times more likely to fail than students in classes that use more stimulating, so-called active learning methods.”

Scholarly research on discussion as an active learning activity, from ABLConnect, an online repository for active learning in higher education.

“As the name implies, problems are absolutely essential for problem-based learning… if there are no problems, there will be no problem-based learning.”

“The 225 studies analyzed document that active learning leads to increases in examination performance that would raise average grades by a half a letter, and that failure rates under traditional lecturing increase by 55% over the rates observed…