Intro

(...)

Don’t be afraid to ask, comrade!
Don’t be talked into anything.
Check for yourself!
What you do not know yourself
you don’t know.
Scrutinize the bill,
it is you who must pay it.
Put your finger on each item,
ask: how did this get there?
You must take over the leadership.

In praise of learning (Bertolt Brecht)

It is interesting that a man who became particularly known as a theatre practitioner and playwright, wrote a poem entitled In praise of learning, and particularly interesting that the excerpt quoted above illustrates so well the principles of active learning. Indeed teaching has so much in common with acting, so it will be appropriate to start by looking at the classroom as the stage, and to everything that is behind it as the backstage.

Notes:

Explicit authorization was requested and obtained for using all images depicting students, be it from current or past editions of all courses referred — each image, accompanied by a brief description of the type of document where it is being used, was sent by email to individual students, and authorizations were collected in the form of email replies. Explicit authorization was also requested and obtained for reproducing the 2015 email shown ahead in figure 1.
There are no references quoted throughout this document. This decision was made to maximize the space available for the main text, and also because its nature differs from a scientific publication. It tells a personal story of teaching and learning, and I preferred to emphasize my own beliefs and the feedback received from students.