Showing posts with label classroom teaching tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classroom teaching tips. Show all posts

Saturday, 28 January 2012

Interactive Teaching Methods Used in Classroom

The methods of teaching have taken a paradigm shift from the archaic teaching methods to the modern day interactive teaching techniques. The one-way communication module has been transformed into a two-way communication process where a teacher/lecturer seeks active participation from their audiences i.e. students. This not only develops the interest of the learner but gives ample opportunity to a teacher to experiment with new techniques and methods of teaching. An active interaction incorporating series of activities amongst the students or between a student-teacher makes even a boring topic or a lesson more interesting for the students.

Modern day educationists truly believe that outdated teaching methods are by gone and a switch must be made to interactive teaching methods, which is definitely the call of the time. Schools today need to put this into practice to make learning more interactive and fun for students.

 Ways To Have Active Interactions In Class


Duplex Communication Technique
 
Teachers must observe duplex communication mode in class. It means students must interact with teacher while discussing a topic.  It does not mean that the teacher should keep on asking redundant questions rather should encourage them to come forward, speak, participate and share their thoughts on the subject.

Regular Discussions In Class 

It is not easy to engage students in the lecture every time. It is difficult to keep them motivated. Discussions while teaching is considered being one of the best teaching methods. It makes classroom teaching more interesting and more interactive.

Making Topics Interesting Does Help


No matter what you may do to catch attention of students but sometimes they just aren’t interested about it.  Challenge is to make it interesting for them by associating it to their lives and things around them.

Quizzes, Elocution and Demonstrations 

Quizzes, elocution and demonstrations can be held in classes to make teaching interesting. Teaching through live demonstrations is an integral part of the classroom sessions, providing an effective combination of visual, textual and PowerPoint-based teaching. It will provide unique learning experience to students.


Educating With Real Life Examples 

Teaching while quoting real –life examples is one the best interactive methods. This not only helps children to understand better but they are able to relate to it in an easier way.


For example, if a teacher is teaching computer science giving examples of the latest computers and laptops in the market or talks about Microsoft, flaws of windows 7, etc- even if they are not included in the syllabus. It helps students to understand in a better way.  Similarly, the teacher must focus more on practical application rather than theoretical knowledge of the subject. There is no point in memorizing hundreds of pages from gargantuan sized text-books if you don’t understand what it really means and how it can utilized.  Theory taught should be kept succinct, and extra stress should be given on the practical.

Saturday, 29 October 2011

How To Ensure Student Participation in Classroom?

You’ve just finished with your lecture on an important topic and you feel you have delivered it well. But after you finish and turn to the class; the reaction of the students stun you. All you can see is blank stares, sleepy eyes and nil responses. This is what many teachers experience in their classrooms from time to time. 
 
It is not easy to engross every child in the lecture every time. To always keep them motivated is a task. You’ve just taught them a topic in depth and hope it will clear their concepts but nothing happens as you have thought. There might be reasons for students not participating in the classroom discussions.  The topic of presentation might bore them or some children might feel hesitate to answer, and some may even have a fear of speaking in front of the class.
 
There are many strategies that a teacher can adopt to double their reflexes in the class and to make them more pro – active for participation.
 
Make topics interesting- No matter what you may do to catch attention of students but sometimes they just aren’t interested in the topic.  Challenge is to make things interesting for the student by making connections to their lives and things around them.

Ask good questions- Even if students are interested in participating, the questions still need to be clear and direct. Good questions connect to the students’ prior knowledge and boost their willingness to speak.

Everyone answers – To make sure every student participates, teacher must ask all students to represent their answer in whatever manner they want to. For instance some may raise their hands and others who are unsure of the correct answer can discuss with other students and then form an opinion about it. Another method is to use thumbs up or thumbs down to express.

Clap if you agree – It is a fun way to make students participate in the class. Like for instance, if a student is answering a question verbally, you can ask rest of the students to clap once if they agree. Then if there is majority of clapping, you’ll understand if they are following or not.

True and false question cards – If initially students hesitate to get involve, then you can ask them to participate in the question –answer session by raising true and false question cards. For instance, students can vote their opinion for every student’s answer by raising true and false question cards. Red for false question card and green for true one.