It's always interesting how many commentors' intuitions about education are completely opposite of what research shows. Active learning has been shown in hundr

It's always interesting how many commentors' intuitions about education are completely opposite of what research shows. Active learning has been shown in hundreds of studies to be superior to traditional lecture-based instruction. Here's a recent meta-analysis: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/05/lectures-arent-just-boring-theyre-ineffective-too-study-finds http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/05/lectures-arent-just-b... http://www.pnas.org/content/111/23/8410 http://www.pnas.org/content/111/23/8410 And you don't need to learn from lecture 'first' to 'prepare' you for subsequent group learning or real-world learning. In fact, the opposite has been shown in research studies. Let students get their hands dirty with some field experience or try out a simulation even though they aren't quite ready for it yet or try to figure out some data, etc., and then when they receive a lecture on a related topic afterward, they will learn much more from it, because they can relate it back to their previous experience. They have a reason to listen to the lecture, rather than just trying to listen and memorize for a some future test or experience they know or care little about. Several studies have compared for example giving a lecture first followed by a simulation or other experience, vs. the other way around. And lecture-first is always inferior. See for example research on productive failure. Here are some examples: http://ideas.time.com/2012/04/25/why-floundering-is-good/ http://ideas.time.com/2012/04/25/why-floundering-is-good/ https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2016/04/19/how-productive-failure-for-students-can-help-lessons-stick/ https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2016/04/19/how-productive-fai... https://bulletproofmusician.com/productive-failure-how-strategic-failure-in-the-short-term-can-lead-to-greater-success-and-learning-down-the-road/ https://bulletproofmusician.com/productive-failure-how-strat... http://manukapur.com/productive-failure/ http://manukapur.com/productive-failure/