Eliminating Lectures (and video lectures) in Large Introductory Materials Science and Engineering Courses: Large Gains in Student Learning

Lecturing to passive students has dominated engineering education despite numerous studies that suggest learning is more effective and deeper if active methods are used. The current study is an attempt to compare learning gains, as measured by exam scores, between the traditional lecture with some (<10%) active learning activities and active learning class session where there was less than 10% of lecture. The work presented here will use the same 180 student class and the same instructor as both the control and intervention group. This introductory materials science and engineering class has been traditionally taught as three 50 minute lectures per week plus a 50 minute recitation. The experiment replaced one lecture a week with active learning activities and peer instruction while continuing to have traditional lectures the other two sessions per week. These active learning sessions were augmented by a short online quiz that students were required to take. They were permitted to retake the quiz as many times as needed to earn the score they desired. These quizzes were based on the reading assignments. An optional, short (<5 min) video was produced each week to replace the only component of lecture that was deemed valuable, inspiration. These videos were not intended to transfer any information. Rather, these short documentary style videos featured a different faculty member and their graduate students each week, sharing their passion for their research in the material that we wanted our students to study. Learning was assessed by tagging exam questions based on the presentation style (lecture or active learning) and comparing the data on two midterms and the final exam. All exams showed a significant difference in exam question score for concepts taught using active learning activities. For example, the final exam showed a 19% difference in the median score on the active learning tagged questions versus the traditional lecture tagged questions. The paper will include additional information on methodologies as well as additional results. We will also discuss our current approach to use the results from this study to guide revisions from the course, which is to eliminate lecture and focus on active engagement in problem solving during class time.