Key takeaways
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Interactive learning is a student-centered approach to teaching and learning that involves students in hands-on, collaborative activities.
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Students who learn through interactive learning demonstrate higher engagement, better skill retention, and the development of 21st century skills.
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While technology can play an important part in interactive learning, teachers can use a variety of low and high-tech tools to engage students.
In a math classroom, students circulate through centers with various manipulatives, task cards, and activities. One center involves students progressing through an online math simulation. Another requires students to use math tiles to solve a problem and post their solutions for feedback. The teacher circulates and asks students questions that deepen their thinking or provides feedback to correct errors. The centers, which happen after a short teacher-delivered lesson, are provided to enhance students’ engagement with the concept. This method of interactive learning passes the learning to students in a way that teacher-led instruction or guided practice does not.
Interactive learning is a student-centered approach to teaching and learning that incorporates hands-on activities, collaboration, discussion, and technology support. The key is that students are actively interacting with the skill they are learning. When teachers use interactive learning, students are working and doing rather than observing a lab or listening to a lecture. The role of the teacher is to provide immediate feedback that supports students’ learning and practice and addresses any misconceptions that students have. When students learn through interactive methods, engagement is high, they use critical thinking skills as they work through problems and collaborate with peers. When students are highly engaged, they retain what they learn.
What Is Interactive Learning?
In a 6th-grade classroom, a teacher distributes novels to small groups of students. The students review the books, set their calendar for how many pages they will read each day, assign roles (summarizer, time keeper), and prepare to read and discuss their novel over the course of a month. The teacher checks in on their progress, listens to the discussion, provides additional questions to push student thinking, and corrects misunderstandings when they arise. When the students are halfway through their novel, the teacher creates an online discussion board for the groups to share their ideas. Now, various groups are discussing the novel, bringing their ideas from discussion to the online boards.
Collaborative discussions, such as literature circles, think-pair-share, centers, project-based learning, game simulations, and debates, are all interactive learning. Essentially, interactive learning is any activity that puts students in the driver’s seat; they do the work and persist through challenges. Strong interactive learning activities include:
- Students who are active and collaborative: Students work in groups to complete a task, solve a problem, or engage in a simulation. This means that students must work together to build knowledge and persist through difficult tasks.
- Teachers providing feedback: Teachers provide feedback to address misunderstandings, so students are practicing correctly and provide probing questions and resources to push students’ thinking. For example, if a group is reading a novel about the Revolutionary War, the teacher may provide a series of videos that address background knowledge or offer an expert explanation to answer a student’s question.
Integration of technology: Digital tools such as online programs, simulations, and other interactive technologies enhance the learning experience. Technology should deepen the interactive element; it is one component of interactive learning, not the entire purpose.
Pros and Cons of Interactive Learning
Pros of Interactive Learning
Students who learn using interactive learning demonstrate higher levels of attention, engagement, and satisfaction with learning. This method of learning also replicates the collaboration that students will use in future careers, and supports 21st century skills, like creativity and critical thinking. Furthermore, it’s an approach that can be used across content areas, from English language arts to science and math courses.
Additional benefits of using interactive learning include:
- Retention and skill transfer: Students retain more information and can transfer skills from one task to another.
- Accommodates a range of learners: Interactive learning methods benefit all students, particularly those at risk or with different learning styles or needs.
- Builds confidence: As students complete tasks themselves, they develop self-efficacy and confidence.
- Real-world alignment: Particularly through project-based learning and simulation, students understand how their learning directly impacts real-world scenarios.
Potential Downsides of Interactive Learning
While interactive learning is powerful, teachers must consider several challenges when implementing this teaching method. For example, if interactive learning is new to students, they may resist taking risks, struggling through challenges, and persisting when the answer is not obvious. Teachers can get ahead of any resistance by teaching the prerequisite skills students need, such as collaborative problem-solving, before assigning interactive learning tasks.
Other considerations include:
- Additional preparation: Teachers may need to set aside additional time and resources to plan interactive learning experiences.
- Classroom management: It may be difficult to manage larger groups and ensure accountability when students are working in groups or on interactive tasks.
- Technology considerations: When interactive learning relies on technology, concerns about students’ skills and equipment can arise.
At times, the best way to present information may be through a lecture or direct instruction. For example, when students are learning a new skill, teacher modeling may be necessary to ensure that all students have the prerequisite knowledge needed. But once students have the knowledge and foundation they need, interactive experiences can make learning relevant and sharpen those 21st century skills. The idea is not to use interactive learning as the only tool, but to embed it within the student experience so that, once they have the knowledge and skills, they use them in meaningful, collaborative ways.
Technology and Tools for Interactive Learning
Interactive learning experiences use a variety of tools, from no-tech to high-tech. For example, in kindergarten, a teacher may put out community helper tools and costumes for students to engage in pretend play. Later, in 5th grade, students may use dress-up clothes from home and home-made accessories to recreate historical town meetings or other simulations that involve debate and decision-making from a historical time period.
Technology can enhance interactive learning, particularly regarding personalized learning, immediate feedback, and opportunities for a variety of experiences. For example:
- A simple online document is a collaborative workspace when multiple students work on the same document toward the same goal.
- A K-12 online learning platform provides cross-curricular experiences for students and ways for teachers to collaborate across areas, enhancing student learning.
- A tool like Discovery Education Experience provides online resources designed to engage students in interactive learning or enhance classroom experiences.
- Interactive whiteboards allow students and teachers to create and manipulate content collaboratively.
- Interactive presentation tools enable real-time polling and feedback.
- Students can use video discussion tools to increase engagement and interaction.
The most high-tech, virtual reality tools immerse students in virtual field trips, or science or historical simulations. For example, to learn about cooperative business models, students may complete HARVEST: From Seed to Success, a gamified learning experience that teaches about agriculture.
Leadership and Instructional Design Considerations
It is the leader’s job to ensure their staff understands why scaffolding is important and, more importantly, how it improves teaching. The first step is giving them time to collaborate as a team about what works, share strategies, and learn from one another. Making scaffolding a regular part of team discussions shows a commitment to the practice. With consistency, it is easier for teachers to see its value in everyday practice.
Communication is key. Leaders can impact how teachers view scaffolding through their own communication. Clear messages about the importance of scaffolding and the high expectations around planning with scaffolding in mind let teachers know that it is a priority. When scaffolding is framed as a strength, teachers are more likely to use it confidently.
How to Implement Interactive Learning in the Classroom
Implementing interactive learning means shifting the classroom from a teacher-centered to a student-centered approach. Interactive experiences can be a short quiz or poll, or a weeks-long project. Either way, teachers can apply these principles to incorporate interactive experiences into their lessons:
- Know the starting point: Use pre-assessments to understand where students start. Use pre-test information to plan groups (pair students with a lot of knowledge with students who have less knowledge on a topic). Or, reflect and set a goal. If a class has minimal knowledge about a topic, what questions do they want to answer? How do they want to use the skills they will learn during a unit? Then, plan how to teach so that students acquire the foundation of knowledge they need to be successful at the interactive learning experiences.
- Build in student voice and choice: Students should be involved in decision-making about their learning. For example, for a final project, a teacher provides a choice board with various project formats to choose from. Or, at the start of a project, a teacher can solicit questions about the topics students want to study within a broader unit.
- Get to know students: Understanding students’ skills and what motivates them will help teachers design effective interactive experiences. Are students highly motivated by competition? Interactive polls and debates may engage that group. Another group that is less motivated by competition but more by collaboration may be engaged in projects that require them to work together to achieve a goal.
- Use online tools strategically. Online tools can personalize student experiences.
- Use rubrics: Collaborative, project-based learning is difficult to assess using a checklist or simple grading scale. Rubrics allow for a more nuanced progression of skills across a unit or even a school year. They also provide students with opportunities to reflect on their learning by completing the same rubric over time.
- Take the role of coach: A teacher’s role shifts during interactive learning; rather than a driver, teachers are coaches and mentors. This means that teachers must plan how students may progress through an experience, and how to use questions and resources to support student learning. Or, how to use feedback and explanation to address misunderstandings.
When done well, interactive learning is a powerful way to engage teachers and students in learning, creating memorable experiences along the way.
