From kindergarten through college, learners benefit from engaged instructors who work every day to help them learn. Teaching techniques vary depending on factors such as the structure of the course, the personalities of the instructors, available budgets, and overall strategic goals. Regardless of how it’s done, the many hours spent on lessons, teaching and grading go toward one important goal: supporting learner success. .
While it may take some careful planning and thoughtful integration into lesson plans, interactive learning brings a wide variety of benefits to the classroom.
One big benefit of all types of interactive learning is the positive effect on learner engagement. Techniques like the ones outlined above tend to sharpen focus and reduce daydreaming. In fact, one study showed that 94% percent of participants felt that interactive response technology helped to keep their attention during presentations.
In more passive, lecture-focused learning environments, one or two learners typically dominate class discussions. Interactive learning techniques instead give learners the opportunity to engage with their peers, express their opinions and be exposed to more diverse points of view. Collaboration also builds social and problem-solving skills, two areas that are valued in school and beyond.
Most importantly, interactive learning pushes learners to stretch their abilities and gives them the tools to achieve deeper learning. By engaging learners in the course, and making them central to the learning experience, they are better able to more deeply analyze and apply the subject matter while strengthening team-building and interpersonal skills at the same time.
There are many ways for instructors to incorporate interactive learning strategies into their classrooms. The following methods – including enhanced lecture, flipped classroom, peer instruction and team-based learning – are just a few.
This is a broad category that encompasses a range of interactive learning strategies in the classroom. At its simplest, an enhanced lecture can look very similar to a traditional lecture, only with the support of interactive learning tools that allow instructors to ask learners frequent questions throughout.
These tools, including response technology in the Echosystem, allow instructors to poll their classes frequently, receive immediate feedback and even facilitate small group discussions. Instructors can also quickly evaluate comprehension and modify lessons on-the-fly to allow more time for concepts that learners are finding more difficult to understand.
The flipped classroom model gives learners first-exposure learning prior to class. Contrary to what many people think, recording lectures for learners to watch at home is not the only way to implement flipped learning. The important part is that there is guided learning outside of class –through a recorded lecture, a reading assignment, or some other method. That guidance can exist as an outline of learning objectives or even interactive homework questions to be completed prior to class. All this pre-class work allows for learners to focus their in-class time on higher-level cognitive activities and hands-on exercises.
Collaboration among learners is a big part of building an interactive learning environment, and peer instruction is a great way to encourage it. This technique involves instructors lecturing for a short amount of time and, as in enhanced lectures, periodically asking their learners questions about the subject matter.
While the learners initially answer the questions on their own, they then meet in small groups to discuss the question-and-answer choices. By the end of the process, learners have a better grasp on the correct answer and a more in-depth understanding of the subject of the lesson.
The EchosystemTM, the world’s first Learning Transformation PlatformTM, provides an array of features to support an interactive learning environment.
