They must be taught to go beyond the concrete, tangible, and visual. They must be taught to think abstractly. Helping students to discover the underlying structure or first principles, not merely memorizing it, helps students to generalize their knowledge. The interactive lecture, or the lecture - discussion format, follows a simple format. Then the instructor delivers another mini-lecture.
Faculty often pay a price for using in-class learning groups.
These include reduced topic coverage, greater student discomfort, and reduced lecturing. However, the reward of seeing students improve their critical thinking often outweighs the faculty's' guilt feelings. Faculty may also believe that students who have been passive and competitive learners will not like the cooperative environment. These are reasonable concerns. Elimination of topics should always be done in a collegial manner.