u/Apprehensive-Echo289

As a student, I always preferred lecture-based courses. As a professor, I tend to default to a dynamic lecturing style that incorporates elements of active learning (namely clicker questions, involving the class in derivations, and giving them practice problems after showing them an example). However, my current department heavily emphasizes groupwork and student-led discovery with minimal direct instruction. I suspect my approach isn't quite up to their standard.

I'm aware that research suggests active classrooms lead to better learning outcomes, so I'm willing to adjust my teaching style if it would benefit my students. That said, I do have a few concerns. I'll number them for convenience (a tl;dr version follows):

1. Most of my students are only taking my class because it's a graduation requirement. In other words, they do not have the intrinsic motivation to engage in discovery-based learning (unlike students in upper-division courses, who self-select into the field). It seems to me that many active learning exercises are designed with the assumption that each student cares about learning, and that's simply not the reality.
2. There's a set amount of material my course needs to cover, and I only have so many hours with my students. Activities take longer than lecture. How do you get through everything you need to cover in the allotted time?
3. Many aspects of active learning rely on group discussions or peer instruction — which strikes me as the blind leading the blind, especially if low-performing or low-motivation students end up in a group together. What if this results in key concepts being learned incorrectly? How far down the wrong path are you willing to let students go before you step in and redirect them?
4. Speaking from my own experience as an autistic person, active/collaborative learning poses special challenges for students who are introverted, neurodivergent, or both. For some of these students, navigating the social dynamics of groupwork can be cognitively taxing to the point where they can't fully process what they're supposed to be doing, let alone gain any valuable insights.

tl;dr:

1. The active learning paradigm assumes students are invested in learning. Many aren't.
2. Activities take up more time than lecture, and class time is limited.
3. Novices trying to learn from each other might lead to misconceptions becoming engrained.
4. Groupwork (the cornerstone of many active-learning frameworks) can be counterproductive and exclusionary to neurodivergent students or those who work best on their own.

If anything I've written seems confrontational, please know it's not meant that way. I genuinely want to provide my students with the best possible learning experience, and I'm open to the possibility that the way I've been teaching isn't that. I look forward to reading your comments.

Next semester, I’ll be teaching a section of an intro course for non-majors. For many of them, it will be their first exposure to my subject, which has a reputation for being tough.

The material I teach didn’t always come easily to me, and I’m considering sharing that with my students when I introduce myself during the first lesson. My intent would be (a) to establish a space where they feel comfortable asking for help and (b) to emphasize “challenging ≠ impossible.” However, I do have concerns that my doing this may have the opposite effect (“if even the prof thinks it’s hard, then there’s no hope for me!”). I also don’t want my competence called into question, especially as a young-looking female instructor in a male-dominated field.

Thoughts?

EDIT: I don't have time to respond to each of you individually, but I appreciate all of the insights. I've decided not to share it with my whole class upfront, but I may tell individual students if I feel it would be encouraging to them.

I've been teaching for the better part of a decade, and I just got the worst set of student evaluations I've ever received. It's hard not to feel bummed about it.

In previous semesters (including those where I felt my courses were much less put-together), I consistently earned glowing feedback from students. I've also won multiple teaching awards. This semester, I scored below my department average despite putting a great deal of time and effort into my teaching. (I emphasize "below my department average" because that implies it's not an issue facing all faculty or a matter of "kids these days"; the same general student population rated my colleagues favorably.)

Some of you might tell me to stop reading my student feedback or quit worrying about what 18-year-olds think. I don't feel that's the solution here, especially since I'm full-time teaching faculty and care deeply about making my subject accessible. That said, I probably care more than I should.

I'll readily admit that I'm not the "fun" prof. Playing music in class, sharing memes, and doing lots of activities isn't my style. But I'm enthusiastic during lectures, break the material down step-by-step, and always go the extra mile to help my students. In the past, they seemed to appreciate it. This semester, a substantial portion of the class gave me the lowest possible rating. It stings, and I don't know what — if anything — I should change.