Although the results vary in strength, this study has found support
for all forms of active learning examined. Some of the findings,
such as the benefits of student engagement, are unlikely to be controversial
although the magnitude of improvements resulting from
active-engagement methods may come as a surprise. Other findings challenge traditional assumptions about engineering education and
these are most worth highlighting.
For example, students will remember more content if brief activities
are introduced to the lecture. Contrast this to the prevalent content
tyranny that encourages faculty to push through as much material
as possible in a given session. Similarly, the support for collaborative
and cooperative learning calls into question the traditional assumptions
that individual work and competition best promote achievement.
The best available evidence suggests that faculty should structure
their courses to promote collaborative and cooperative
environments. The entire course need not be team-based, as seen by
the evidence in Springer et al. [43], nor must individual responsibility
be absent, as seen by the emphasis on individual accountability in cooperative
learning. Nevertheless, extensive and credible evidence suggests
that faculty consider a nontraditional model for promoting academic
achievement and positive student attitudes.
Problem-based learning presents the most difficult method to
analyze because it includes a variety of practices and lacks a dominant
core element to facilitate analysis. Rather, different implementations
of PBL emphasize different elements, some more effective
for promoting academic achievement than others. Based on the literature,
faculty adopting PBL are unlikely to see improvements in
student test scores, but are likely to positively influence student attitudes
and study habits. Studies also suggest that students will retain
information longer and perhaps develop enhanced critical thinking
and problem-solving skills, especially if PBL is coupled with explicit
instruction in these skills.
Teaching cannot be reduced to formulaic methods and active
learning is not the cure for all educational problems. However, there
is broad support for the elements of active learning most commonly
discussed in the educational literature and analyzed here. Some of
the findings are surprising and deserve special attention. Engineering
faculty should be aware of these different instructional methods
and make an effort to have their teaching informed by the literature
on “what works.”