What is an interactive classroom?

Monday, December 19th, 2011 | education | 2 Comments

An interactive classroom is one in which learners participate as equal partners in the learning process.  The teacher acts as a facilitator and guide, but the learners are enthusiastically playing their part in learning.  Apart from the fact that learner participation makes the teaching task more interesting for the teacher, research has shown that much more learning takes place in an interactive classroom than in a passive one.

What are the features of an interactive classroom?  It definitely is not a place where a teacher lectures and the children passively listen.  Learners do writing exercises, take part in class discussions and actively participate in solving problems.  An interactive classroom also requires that learners engage in higher-order thinking tasks, which include analysis of information, evaluation of the facts and a process of synthesis to build new knowledge.

Many teachers have acquired the skills to transform a dull classroom into an interactive one.  Different techniques exist to do this and where teachers apply these techniques the attitudes and achievements of learners are affected positively.

The key to a successful interactive classroom is in the hands of the teacher – it is not dependent on any fancy tools or equipment.  However, children are fascinated by technology.  They grow up in a world dominated by technology and they likely have cell phones or other mobile devices in their pockets.  The wise teacher makes use of technology to enhance the learning experience of their learners.  In this way technology enables an interactive classroom.

You can have learner interactivity in the classroom without technology … but if this goal is illusive, technology will help you to attain it.

Tags: interactive classroom, learners, teachers, technology