Interactive Teaching: The Two-Way Process!

Teaching is a flexible and interactive calling where only those dedicated to ushering students meet and exceed all the educational goals. The paths to this Rome are as countless as there are teachers and students. Each new dynamic is an opportunity for novel methods that will help reach the various teaching objective.

Interactive teaching styles are the perfect platform for incorporating the numerous goals of education. The basic design is genius in its simplicity; unless students have practical application for the concepts they have been taught, they will invariably fail to grasp the core of the material. They have garnered four measurable feedback forms: teachers becoming well adept at grasping how well students have managed to master a lesson, flexibility, and adjustability in the two-way interaction, continuous enhanced process and an unprecedented student communication, unlike the former passivity. The biggest asset of interactive learning is that it engages students to participate unlike a lecture-style class where the flood of information soon bores listeners and causes them to disengage. Therefore, it’s essential that interactive classes are delivered as interesting, exciting and fun. Lecturing is not teaching and listening does not equate learning. In order to solicit this participation, teachers need to ask stimulating questions that prompt answers and group discussions with the aid of tools and gadgets that help retain attention.

Contrary to popular opinion, there are many interactive teaching styles. The first is brainstorming that takes place by dividing students into groups where they all spitball ideas. The conversations can occur within and outside a structured system, by the provocation of a point of conflict, with nominal interactions, by having electronic chat forums, by team-idea mapping, etc. The second method is think, pair and share where a question is asked and groups of two or more sit aside to thoroughly discuss it. The answers of each group are told out loud before a discussion about the various perspectives is debated. A buzz session is similar to the previous method, but each group is given a single topic and students are asked to contribute with their own input. This will allow each student to benefit from the experience of their peers. The incident process is an attenuated case study approach where small groups are provided with some, but not all, details about a real or hypothetical case. Each student is prompted to come up with their own solution and discuss it in a group dynamic. The last method is a Q&A session where the teacher introduces a topic and allows students to write down any question that pops into mind about that topic. The teacher then starts answering these questions and thus provides an answer to every inquiry. For better results, these questions can be grouped in a logical sequence that will make it easier for students to understand the lesson.

There is no question that the traditional lecturing method has become obsolete, and all teachers need to realize that the age of technology will pass us by unless we teach ourselves how to adapt to what could be history’s most influential generation.