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Peter Liljedahl discusses a lot about "thinking classrooms". There is research and books, which show, that his methods transform classes from "non-thinking" to "thinking".

If that is true, there should be evidence in grade improvement, like, higher final grades compared to control classes, or higher STEM participation.

What is the evidence for this?

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    $\begingroup$ Should there be? I just mean, a lot of our curriculum and assessments might not be designed for "thinking" students. So I wouldn't assume that "thinking" students would show improvement on metrics not designed to measure "thinking". As a "thinking" student myself, I am terribly slow at answering test questions that aren't something I've memorized. $\endgroup$
    – Carser
    Jun 22, 2021 at 11:33
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    $\begingroup$ It's only possible to meaningfully evaluate the effectiveness of a teaching method if you do a carefully designed, controlled experiment, with a measure of success that is reliable and valid. This would typically be a test that was carefully constructed for research purposes, and its validity needs to be evident to anyone with proper training whom you hope to convince. Teacher-assigned grades measure whether the students did what the teacher wanted them to do, not whether what the teacher wanted them to do was the right thing to want. $\endgroup$
    – user507
    Jun 22, 2021 at 12:54
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    $\begingroup$ Since I hadn't heard of Liljedahl, I googled and added a link from the question to an article by him. However, the article doesn't really clarify what he means by "thinking" and "non-thinking." He seems to have some sort of idee fixe involving his own idiosyncratic definitions of these terms, as if we're supposed to trust him that he knows it when he sees it. $\endgroup$
    – user507
    Jun 22, 2021 at 13:00
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    $\begingroup$ Your link states that Liljedahl has been studying this for 14 years (as of 2017), so he has probably done some studies on this. You could try looking through Google Scholar. $\endgroup$
    – JRN
    Jun 22, 2021 at 13:58
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    $\begingroup$ @BenCrowell This seems pretty typical in pedagogy. Angela Lee Duckworth never defines "grit", except that every successful person in history had it and every unsuccessful person in history lacked it. And I never saw anyone who went beneath the top layer of multiple intelligence theory, like formally identifying which intelligences a specific student had or what instructional strategies were most effective for those students. People like these seem to be too busy writing books and holding seminars to rigorously prove that their methods are effective. $\endgroup$
    – Matthew Daly
    Jun 22, 2021 at 15:02

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