Discussion on Active Learning
The definition learning by doing seems to be very broad and essentially does not allow to capture the richness of an active learning strategy.
[1] provides a clean and unambiguous definition of active learning in a face-to-face classroom. The authors provide four requirements of active learning in this paper.
- Instructor creates carefully designed ac+vi+es that require students to talk, write, reflect and express their thinking.
- Students go beyond listening, copying of notes, execution of prescribed procedures.
- Explicitly based on theories of learning.
- Evaluated empirically through empirical research
I think many would have issues with point 4 (and maybe on 3 to some extent). However this wiki talk page is a good place to discuss and refine this idea.
[1] Meltzer, David E., and Ronald K. Thornton. "Resource letter ALIP–1: active-learning instruction
in physics." American journal of physics 80.6 (2012): 478-496.