@Doug_Lemov Thanks Doug for the great clarification. Indeed the quote needed its context. I wasn't talking about procedural learning, but about how we learn ideas (semantic learning). In fact, I said that everybody knows that in order to learn a new procedure, you better do it (practice it).
@Doug_Lemov But what do you have to do in order to learn a new idea? You need to think about it in terms of meaning. "Memory is the residue of thought" as @DTWillingham says. So then I clarified that the term "active learning", when learning content knowledge, doesn't mean learning by doing.
@Doug_Lemov @DTWillingham It actually means learning by thinking (see Mayer's writings about this important difference). Therefore, making experiments in the classroom is only active learning is students are trying to understand the results, to connect them with the lesson, etc.
@Doug_Lemov @DTWillingham Unfortunately, many times students can be doing an experiment while thinking in other issues, because they just follow instructions, etc. We see them doing things but they are not learning because their thought is somewhere else.
@Doug_Lemov @DTWillingham On the other hand, reading can be active learning if the student is making pauses to think about the information s/he just read: explaining it with his/her own words, suggesting examples, comparing it to other things s/he knows, inventing analogies, etc. However...
@Doug_Lemov @DTWillingham student's thought is invisible to teachers. Therefore, at the end of the day, if a teacher wants to be sure that active learning is happening, then active learning must be a "learning by doing". Students need to do things in order to make their thinking visible. But not anything.
@Doug_Lemov @DTWillingham The things they need to do are those that make them think about the learning objectives and that make that thinking visible for the teacher. Too often, we design activities that let them think in any other issues or that focus their thought in irrelevant parts of the activity.
@Doug_Lemov @DTWillingham So if we want to be sure that the activities that our students are doing are promoting active learning, we have to check if they are making them think about the ideas we want them to learn. The presentation was much longer, but I hope this brief clarification helps.
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