Hat tip to Web of Substance for this link to an article about whole-class interactive teaching. Whole class instruction has become unpopular in education circles. One often hears the tedious bromide that teachers should be “the guide on the side, not the sage on the stage” (the phrase gets over 13 million hits in Google, but here is an excellent balanced critique).
There is consistent evidence that whole class instruction can be very effective. Of course, any teaching technique can be done badly, and we have all sat through boring lectures. But cooperative learning is also often done badly, and many of us have also sat through unproductive group learning exercises. Note that the argument here is for whole class interactive teaching. There are techniques that can make whole class engaging and responsive.
A summary of the paper can be found here.
peakmemory 
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