Interactivity in the classroom and its impact on learning (original) (raw)
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The influence of ICT on the interactivity of teaching
Education and Information Technologies, 2008
There has been much concern with the ideas of interactive and dialogic teaching during recent years in the UK, ideas which have emerged from international comparisons. This paper concerns a research project in Wales which sought to explore how the interactive features of information and communication technology (ICT) support interactivity in teaching. The project found that much use of ICT by good teachers was at a relatively superficial level of interaction, yet when teachers used a deeper, more dialogic, level of interactivity in teaching, they achieved improvements in learning whether they used ICT or not. The potential of ICT to support more dialogic teaching was not being fully exploited. The paper reports the findings of the classroom observation dimension of the project, and examines the implications for pedagogical practices and the development/dissemination of ICT resources which can support more dialogic interactivity.
Analysing the use of interactive technology to implement interactive teaching
Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 2008
Abstract Recent policy initiatives in England have focused on promoting ‘interactive’ teaching in schools, with a clear expectation that this will lead to improvements in learning. This expectation is based on the perceived success of such approaches in other parts of the world. At the same time, there has been a large investment in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) resources, and particularly in interactive whiteboard technology. This paper explores the idea of interactive teaching in relation to the interactive technology which might be used to support it. It explains the development of a framework for the detailed analysis of teaching and learning in activity settings which is designed to represent the features and relationships involved in interactivity. When applied to a case study of interactive teaching during a lesson involving a variety of technology-based activities, the framework reveals a confusion of purpose in students' use of an ICT resource that limits the potential for learning when students are working independently. Discussion of relationships between technical and pedagogical interactivity points a way forward concerning greater focus on learning goals during activity in order to enable learners to be more autonomous in exploiting ICT's affordances, and the conclusion identifies the variables and issues which need to be considered in future research which will illuminate this path.
This article presents a new classroom observations analysis tool (CLI-O: Class Learning Interactions -Observation tool). The CLI-O tool enables the collection of various data regarding the use of ICT tools, organization of learning, and teacher-student interactions in the lesson. Several examples demonstrating the use of CLI-O and some preliminary findings derived from this tool are presented. CLI-O was developed in order to answer the question: Is learning in an ICT-based environment characterized by a unique pedagogy expressed, for example, by student-centered pedagogy while the teacher serves as a guide who mediates learning using a variety of technological tools? For example, in lessons observed and analyzed by CLI-O in the present study, a large part of the learning was found to be whole class learning, mainly frontal learning, and the teacher was at the focus of the lesson. CLI-O supplies a systematic description of classroom processes and enables teachers, teacher educators, and researchers to examine the implementation of ICT in teaching and learning and perceive it as a gradual ongoing process of building a new pedagogy tailored to the needs of the 21 st century.
INTERACTIVITY IN THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
MA ODE Studies, 1998
This report discusses interactivity in Distance Education Learning Environments in an attempt to describe and analyse the function of interactions between the learner and the elements which constitute such an environment. Interactivity is examined in this context as an activity performed by the learner/s in response and in relation to their learning environment, and does not refer to "the delivery system interactions, which are the property of media". [Wagner, 1994] The work in this project has been based on the learning transactions that took place within the OU-H802 [Appx.1] postgraduate distance course in its first year of delivery, as well as on personal experiential observations and literature readings accumulated in the three years of learning at a distance at postgraduate level and from praxis in the fields of Special Education and Educational Technology.
This article presents a new classroom observations analysis tool (CLI-O: Class Learning Interactions – Observation tool). The CLI-O tool enables the collection of various data regarding the use of ICT tools, organization of learning, and teacher-student interactions in the lesson. Several examples demonstrating the use of CLI-O and some preliminary findings derived from this tool are presented. CLI-O was developed in order to answer the question: Is learning in an ICT-based environment characterized by a unique pedagogy expressed, for example, by student-centered pedagogy while the teacher serves as a guide who mediates learning using a variety of technological tools? For example, in lessons observed and analyzed by CLI-O in the present study, a large part of the learning was found to be whole class learning, mainly frontal learning, and the teacher was at the focus of the lesson. CLI-O supplies a systematic description of classroom processes and enables teachers, teacher educators, and researchers to examine the implementation of ICT in teaching and learning and perceive it as a gradual ongoing process of building a new pedagogy tailored to the needs of the 21 st century.
Multimedia, interactivity and learning: some lessons from the United Kingdom
1. Context The past decade has seen unprecedented investment in the use of new technology in UK schools and politicians of all parties have waxed lyrical about the potential of ICT for improving teaching and learning in school subjects. In particular, attention has focused on the multimedia dimensions of new technology and the claims that new technology offers the potential to provide interactive modes of teaching and learning which will be more effective than traditional modes of pedagogy. It is important to keep in mind that not all countries have the same attitude to the use of ICT in education. Whereas some have adopted an enthusiastic espousal of putting large numbers of computers into schools, and seen the technologisation of education as a crucial 'weapon' in terms of international competitiveness in education, others have been more relaxed or restrained in this area, and have not viewed computer to pupil ratios, or quality and quantity of internet connectivity in s...
2003
The Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne has implemented three flexible wireless classrooms for teaching and learning in the Humanities. These classrooms are designed to support innovative teaching practices and enhance natural human interactions. This paper reports the results of a survey of the impact on teaching in these classrooms. Results indicate that the opportunities provided by these flexible wireless classrooms substantially influenced particular teaching practices. These included strategies for teaching, engagement of students with the subject matter, socialization and interaction in class and providing feedback to learners. Attributes of the classrooms that had the greatest impact on teaching were the ability to configure space, move about in the classroom and use a variety of technologies.