Teaching that empowers students starts with the simple recognition that teachers can’t learn anything for students. It’s the learners who must do that hard, messy work, but it’s made easier by teachers who motivate them to tackle those tasks and then follow through with guidance and support.

Some students prefer a more passive approach to education and would rather have teachers do learning tasks such as summarizing, outlining, and reviewing. These students resist making decisions related to learning. They want the teacher to tell them how long the paper should be, how many homework problems they should work, and what’s important in the text. They want courses to be easy and teachers not to call on them. In brief, many students want to sit back and ...