You misunderstood me, I never said passive lecturing was better than active, what I said is that it is useful (as opposed to your "doesn't help much") and as an "entertaining lecture" (quoting you again), not as a boring one as the second article states. Clearly an active one has more chances of sticking with you but don't you remember any particular scene in a show that for whatever reason you can't never forget?

Passive lecturing is awful in general, but I'm not sure what the alternative is. At least with an online course you can pause, rewind, rewatch. With an in person lecture you are at the mercy of your note taking ability and the book. MOOCs were just becoming a thing when I was in graduate school and I really think my undergraduate experience would have been much better if they had existed then.