The feeling of a thing and the reality of it often differ

It’s not enough to be honest; you also must appear so. Navigation has to look like navigation, not just be it. If it’s for digging a hole, it should probably look like a shovel.

Discussions and other activities lead to better learning outcomes than lectures, but students and professors both think that lecturing feels like teaching.

Often, you have to demonstrate the lack to create a feeling¹ ⊕ ¹ This almost feels like emotional contagion, a concept I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. that matches reality before you grapple with that reality. The Executive Presentation Framework addresses this.

References

Norman Eng. Teaching college: The ultimate guide to lecturing, presenting, and engaging students . 2017.

Lectures aren’t very useful for actual learning. Instead, they provide the illusion of teaching or learning. They’re often too dense and too long, duplicating ideas from the reading and focusing on a “more is better” approach to the content. Lectures and slides aren’t to be avoided at all costs, but they must be deployed deliberately if they’re going to be effective.

Problem-based learning makes the instructor think carefully about the applications of a lesson and immediately shows students that there’s a skill they lack.

Svinicki, M. D., & McKeachie, W. J. (2011). McKeachie’s teaching tips (Fourteenth edition). Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Students often feel they have learned less in a discussion than in a lecture where they’ve taken a lot of notes.