Hi Gary, thanks for your comment! While this specific article discussed the student’s experience in a flipped classroom, I think you’re right — this can tend to happen in any environment where students are required to work together with a diverse group of coworkers. Recognizing the social phenomena at play even outside of flipped classrooms should inform our implementation of active learning as a whole.

Thanks for your comment. Cost is a factor, time is a factor, what schools value is a factor, tradition is a factor – the list is pretty extensive I think. A concept that comes from the financial/business consulting industry is “you measure what matters.” The less attention we give to teaching approach the more we send the message that it doesn’t matter.

Great examples and great points. It seems counterintuitive, but higher education really does seem to a place that is change-averse. You mentioned a number of reasons why that could be – which I can easily see as being at least a part of the issue. My question is why isn’t there more of a top-down push to make changes? That seems like a pretty easy “practice what you preach” move that institutions of higher education can make.

I think PowerPoint is an interesting example. It was around in the 1990s but didn’t really catch on until the mid to late 2000s. I remember making a PowerPoint for a marketing presentation around 2002. My group was the only one in the class who used PowerPoint. Today PowerPoint is the ONLY thing my students want to use when creating projects. I have to “outlaw” for some projects to force them to try other things even though they have so many options with current Web technologies. It takes time for a potential solution to catch hold which means we need the early adopters to also be evangelists for the benefits of the tools they find effective.

One simple solution I would suggest is making effective teaching a part of the tenure process. Encouraging people to do uncomfortable things takes incentives. I’d say – based on the research noted in the original post – that the focus of achieving tenure track (the system) makes taking the time to be innovative in the classroom a disincentive.