Defining Collaborative Teaching

If educators are to meet the goal of helping each child reach their full
intellectual potential, then teachers need to learn how to engage in
collaborative teaching experiences. But what does it mean to collaborate?
The absence of a common definition for collaboration is a major hurdle
blocking the path to achieving the goal of having teachers work together to
improve the performance of their students.
There are several levels of collaboration. For some teachers, collaboration
looks like this scenario: Teacher A and teacher B teach next door to each
other. During morning hall duty, teacher A announces that she is teaching
the American Revolution. Teacher B is thrilled to hear this because he is
planning to have his students read, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. Both
teachers agree to coordinate their lessons so that students can have what
they are learning about the American Revolution supported by a classic
poem found in the literature book. Is this serendipitous meeting of two
teachers on hall duty an example of collaboration? Maybe.
While this may be a very lite version of collaboration, it does qualify as a
plausible example of teachers working together to make connections across
curriculum. This is a very low level definition of collaboration. After all, an
honest argument could be made that this type of collaboration is certainly
better than no collaboration.
If only Teacher A and Teacher B could check their calendars and begin
scheduling weekly meetings they could create a true collaborative
relationship. Together, they would begin to construct fully structured bridges
between their curriculums that would not only bring them deep professional
satisfaction, more importantly; they would enrich the learning experiences of
their students.
Try to picture the collaborative environment Teacher A and Teacher B could
produce. Can you see each teacher bringing their respective curriculum
guides to their first meeting? Teacher A reads her American Revolution
standard and all the related benchmarks and learning outcomes. Teacher B
scans his skill based curriculum and finds reading, writing, speaking, and
research benchmarks which could be easily met through Teacher As
curriculum. Together, these teachers begin to see how cross curricular
teaching allows them to see the deep and authentic connections between
their curriculums. Very quickly, they pull their once isolated standards into a
web which captures the attention and interest of their Generation E
students.

When Teacher A and Teacher B begin to define collaboration as a deep

partnership between educators in which curriculum is studied and
understood by teams of teachers across curriculum, they will be embarking
on a journey to the highest levels of collaboration. When an understanding
of the connections between curriculums is brought into their classrooms, the
links between knowledge disciplines will become heavily traveled highways.
Their students will be the beneficiaries of this journey to the pinnacle of
teaching.
As these model teachers continue to work together, their collaboration will
gain depth and complexity. They will know their partners curriculum as well
as they know their own. They can not fail to notice the transformative power
of their students growing interest and deepening knowledge. Their students
are no longer passive and almost lifeless classroom occupants. They have
become excited learners. Something miraculous is happening. Teachers who
work collaboratively at this high level begin to experience the true joy of
teaching. They are no longer isolated, but more importantly, they can see
their students growing toward the end goal of education: independent,
critical thinking.
No teacher is an island, and as teachers realize this and move to a higher
and more profound definition of collaboration, they will make a fundamental
and positive change in their own lives and the lives of their students. The net
result of this change will be better teaching and better learning.
Posted by About Debbie Shults at Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Labels: collaboration, Generation E, teacher collaboration

Introduction
Experienced teachers often recall team or collaborative teaching experiences as their best and
worst experiences in a classroom. Like any form of collaborative scholarship, successful
collaborative teaching integrates the strengths of multiple viewpoints in a synthetic endeavor that
no single member of the project could have completed independently. It also provides an
expanded number of teaching styles that may connect with more student learning preferences.
At its best, collaborative teaching allows students and faculty to benefit from the healthy
exchange of ideas in a setting defined by mutual respect and a shared interest in a topic. At its
worst, collaborative teaching can create a fragmented or even hostile environment in which
instructors undermine each other and compromise the academic ideal of a learning community
and civil discourse. Kathryn Plank, editor of Team Teaching: Across the Disciplines, Across the
Academy, describes team teaching as a rough and tumble enterprise. Read Planks blog entry
about team teaching.

Three Models for Collaborative Teaching

There are three models that the CFT describes here for faculty and student consideration as you
contemplate collaborative teaching: traditional team teaching, linked courses for student learning
communities, and connected pairs of courses meeting at the same time.
______________________________________________________________________________
__________

Traditional team teaching involves two or more instructors teaching

the same course. The instructors are involved in a collaborative endeavor throughout the entire
course. Some team teaching is more like tag-team teaching, in which only one instructor meets
the class to cover a segment of the material. Tag-team teaching has its benefits, but it misses out
on the benefits of dialogue and the give and take engaged by the team of instructors.
Advantages of this model include potential deep student learning because of exposure to the
connections across the disciplines of the instructors, the ambiguity of different disciplinary
views, and the broad support that a heterogeneous teaching team can provide during the entire
course.
Challenges include the misfortunes that could occur if the team is not well organized and
connected. One challenge is determining the amount of credit each of the team members receives
for teaching the course. Sometimes an instructor receives only a fraction of the credit that he or
she would receive for teaching a course solo, while in reality team teaching usually requires each
instructor to engage more work than when being the only instructor.
______________________________________________________________________________
__________
The linked course approach involves a cohort of 20 or so students, traditionally but not
necessarily first year, together taking two or three courses that are linked by a theme. For
example, the theme could be the environment with the 3 courses being introductory biology,
political science, and English. Once each week the instructors of these linked courses provide a
one-hour seminar for the cohort in which the instructors jointly discuss connections, similarities,

and differences between the content and objectives of the courses.

Advantages, based on the research on student learning communities fostered by linked courses,
include increased student retentionparticularly for students academically at risk; faster and less
disruptive student cognitive intellectual development; and greater civic contributions to the
institution.
Challenges include finding students for the cohort and aligning the student schedules (this is
usually undertaken by the student affairs division and the registrar). Another challenge is
sometimes the cliquish behavior when the student cohort is embedded in a larger class.
______________________________________________________________________________
___________

The third model involves a pair or series of connected courses

arranged and connected by the instructors to meet at the same scheduled time so that the classes
can meet as a whole when the instructors think it is appropriate. The instructors can illustrate and
emphasize the interdisciplinarity of certain topics or approaches appearing in both courses.
For example, a connected pair could be an introductory political science and an introductory
biology course where the role of public policy affects the biological environment. There is no
student learning community cohort involved, so the support generated by a learning community
is not available. Thus the connected instructors should include some community building in their

courses and during joint meetings. Forming small groups in each course and then mixing these
across the courses could build the needed community.
Advantages of this model include the student encounters with different disciplinary connections
and related ambiguity. This model is easier to set up than the student learning community linked
course model because there is no cohort to form.
Challenges may include finding a space for the joint class meetings.

Cultivating Colleagueship
Finding (or cultivating) a good fit in personality, expertise, and pedagogical philosophy is
important to functioning as an effective instructional connection. Strong mismatches in these
areas could pose serious obstacles or, on the other hand, provide a variety of learning experiences
and opportunities for students. The following questions may be useful as you consider any type
of collaborative teaching with a colleague:

Do we share a mutual respect for one another?

Are we free to disagree respectfully without putting our careers in jeopardy?

Are our areas of expertise more likely to complement each other or compete
for dominance in the course?

Are we both willing to compromise on issues around which we are used to

having a high degree of autonomy (eg. grading standards, course content,
and classroom management in the case of team teaching)? (These are not of
such concern for linked courses.)

Team teaching also cultivates collaboration between teachers and students. In the article Team
Teaching: The Learning Side of the Teaching Learning Equation, Eison and Tidwell (2003)
advocate sharing power with students and including them in some of the decision-making about
their own learning. We believe this facilitates critical thinking and students ability to see
themselves as constructors of knowledge.

Constructing Team-Taught, Linked, or Connected Courses

Even the most complementary pairings will find it difficult to be successful if they are not
working toward the same overall goals. Proper course design is a pragmatic step for any courses,
but it is particularly important for team-taught, linked, or connected courses. By exploring
individual assumptions about the goals and methods of a course and reaching a consensus, linked

or co-instructors dramatically improve their chances of offering compelling, coherent courses.

Conversely, by not working together in such a course design process, linked and co-instructors
run the risk of outcomes such as the following:

Serial or parallel teaching splits time between two fundamentally different

approaches that can leave students confused; moreover, it fails to take
advantage of the opportunity for instructors to build community and model
rigorous, courteous academic discourse.

Linked or co-instructors who improvise policies or assignments independently

create an environment that promotes triangulation (students playing one
instructor against the other) and inconsistency.

If there is a power imbalance involved among the instructors that is not

addressed such as between senior and junior faculty, students will recognize
the inequality and their learning from one of the instructors may be
compromised.

The CFTs teaching guides on Course Design and its Course Design Working Groups offer
advice and resources for instructors as they develop or refine their course offerings.

In addition to the normal challenges of developing course

content and procedures, linked and co-instructors must decide how to share the teaching
responsibilities. Two heads may be better than one at modeling academic discourse, presenting
ideas in a variety of ways, facilitating student discussions, and evaluating student work, but they
also may be prone to replacing student discussion with expert opinions, contradicting one
another, and getting caught up in debating minor points to the detriment of student learning.

As a part of course design, linked and co-instructors should consider the following
questions:

What responsibilities will be shared by the instructors?

What responsibilities will be divided generally (across the semester) or

specifically (on particular days)?

What are the responsibilities of the instructor in charge of a particular event

or assignment?

How can the other instructor(s) facilitate student learning by assisting the
instructor with the primary responsibility for a given event or assignment?

How will instructors handle disagreements about content or procedure

without undermining one another or compromising student learning?

How and when will instructors meet to discuss the course or linked courses
and consider changes to content or procedures throughout the semester?

Why Teacher Collaboration Time is Essential

November 16th, 2012 | Add a Comment
While many schools have provided weekly teacher collaboration time for many years, others
have yet to embrace this essential component to successful schools. This is a big mistake.
The word collaboration has gone through an evolution during the past 200 some odd years.
According to dictionary.com, collaborate means:
1. the act of working with another or others on a joint project
2. something created by working jointly with another or others
3. the act of cooperating as a traitor, esp with an enemy occupying ones own country
According to etymonline.com**, collaborate originated in 1860, noun of action from
collaborate. In a bad sense, traitorous cooperation with an occupying enemy, it is recorded
from 1940; earliest references are to the Vichy Government of France.
Collaborate no longer has such a negative meaning. Its obvious that the first two definitions
listed above evoke the more accurate meaning of the word in present day. The more modern
definition of collaboration is: working together with people of varying opinions and
backgrounds for the purpose of achieving a common goal. For every school, there is a common
goal to ensure the best holistic education possible for each and every one of the students to be
prepared to contribute as a global citizen.

Teacher collaboration is an invaluable part of achieving this common goal. Research shows that
when teachers collaborate effectively, it leads to:
School-wide shared responsibility of all students and their learning
Professional culture and a true practice of being a team
Teacher retention and job satisfaction
More effective use of data to drive instruction
Improved teaching practices through sharing of knowledge
Accountability for outcomes
More uniform application of school-wide policies and procedures, which is immeasurably
important in building school culture

In the past, some parents have told me that teachers have plenty of prep time and that they dont
need to be given any more time for collaboration. Prep time isnt collaboration time. While it
certainly can be used for collaboration time, that would mean that teachers would need to have
common prep time, which is also challenging at best within scheduling constraints. This also
limits the ability for the specialists (ie. PE teachers) to be involved in cross grade level/subject
matter collaboration. Heres a chart that shows the difference between collaboration time and
prep time.

Collaboration time (full staff availability) versus Prep time (during the day, usually not
common time):

One of the barriers to teacher collaboration is time. In a corporate setting, associates, managers,
and colleagues meet regularly to collaborate. While some do it better than others, most, if not all
would agree that success in meeting shared (organizational) goals is far less likely without all
parties working together. If four people need to meet together, they schedule a meeting at any
given time, typically without too much difficulty.
In schools, however, teachers, instructional assistants, support staff (ie. speech and language
pathologists) and principals do not have the opportunity to meet together unless the time is
deliberately scheduled into the day, without students present. This is nearly impossible to
schedule during the course of regular school hours. Teachers are often lacking common duty-free
(student-free) time, and thus are unable to collaborate across differing grade levels/teaching
assignments (such as specialists), across curricular areas, and sometimes even across same grade
levels. What a shame.
At one of the charter schools where I was the director, I was able to convince the board to
implement a one hour early release on Wednesdays for teacher collaboration time. It took a lot of
planning and selling to the parents (while the kids were on board right away ha ha). However, in
the end, the parent community approved it by nearly 80% in support of implementing teacher
collaboration time. With the implementation of teacher collaboration time, which was carefully
planned and executed each week, and effective use of data driven instruction (which Ill discuss
in a future post), within one year, that school as a whole, outperformed the neighboring public
school district in math and reading for the first time in the 8 year history of the school. Major
props to those teachers and the school community at large for embracing teacher collaboration
time.

The benefits of dedicated teacher collaboration time are substantial and invaluable. If your
childs school hasnt implemented it yet, why not bring it up as a key component to school
improvement. Theres always room for improvement.
Does your childs school have a teacher collaboration time? Do you see the fruits of the
dedicated time? If your childs school doesnt have teacher collaboration time, has something
been preventing its implementation?
As always, thank you for reading and happy Friday!
References:
*collaboration. Dictionary.com. Collins English Dictionary Complete & Unabridged 10th
Edition. HarperCollins Publishers. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/collaboration
(accessed: November 14, 2012).
**collaboration. Dictionary.com. Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/collaboration (accessed: November 14, 2012).
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What IS Interactive Teaching?

by Dr. Louis Abrahamson, bE staff

The first thing to realize about interactive teaching is that it is NOT something new or
mysterious. If you are a teacher and you ask questions in class, assign and check homework, or
hold class or group discussions, then you already teach interactively. Basically then (in my
book), interactive teaching is just giving students something to do, getting back what they have
done, and then assimilating it yourself, so that you can decide what would be best to do next.
But, almost all teachers do these things, so is there more to it? To answer this question, one has
to step away from teaching and think about learning. Over the last twenty years, the field of
cognitive science has taught us a lot about how people learn. A central principle that has been
generally accepted is that everything we learn, we "construct" for ourselves. That is, any outside
agent is essentially powerless to have a direct effect on what we learn. If our brain does not do it
itself, - that is, take in information, look for connections, interpret and make sense of it, - no
outside force will have any effect. This does not mean that the effort has to be expressly
voluntary and conscious on our parts. Our brains take-in information and operate continuously
on many kinds of levels, only some of which are consciously directed. But, conscious or not, the
important thing to understand is that it is our brains that are doing the learning, and that this
process is only indirectly related to the teacher and the teaching.
For example, even the most lucid and brilliant exposition of a subject by a teacher in a lecture,
may result in limited learning if the students' brains do not do the necessary work to process it.
There are several possible causes why students' learning may fall short of expectations in such a
situation. They may,

not understand a crucial concept partway into the lecture and so what follows is
unintelligible,

be missing prior information or not have a good understanding of what went before, so
the conceptual structures on which the lecture is based are absent,

lack the interest, motivation, or desire to expend the mental effort to follow the
presentation, understand the arguments, make sense of the positions, and validate the
inferences.

However, whatever the cause, without interacting with the students (in the simplest case by
asking questions), a teacher has no way to know if his/her efforts to explain the topic were
successful.
This brings me to the first of (what I believe are) three distinct reasons for interactive teaching. It
is an attempt to see what actually exists in the brains of your students. This is the "summative"
aspect. It is the easiest aspect to understand and it is well described in the literature. But, it is far
from being the only perspective! The second reason is "formative", where the teacher aims
through the assigned task to direct students' mental processing along an appropriate path in
"concept-space". The intent is that, as students think through the issues necessary in traversing

the path, the resulting mental construction that is developed in the student's head will possess
those properties that the teacher is trying to teach. As Socrates discovered, a good question can
accomplish this result better than, just telling the answer.
The third may be termed "motivational". Learning is hard work, and an injection of motivation at
the right moment can make all the difference. One motivating factor provided by the interactive
teacher is the requirement of a response to a live classroom task. This serves to jolt the student
into action, to get his brain off the couch, so to speak. Additional more subtle and pleasant events
follow immediately capitalizing on the momentum created by this initial burst. One of these is a
result of our human social tendencies. When teachers ask students to work together in small
groups to solve a problem, a discussion ensues that not only serves in itself to build more robust
knowledge structures, but also to motivate. The anticipation of immediate feedback in the form
of reaction from their peers, or from the teacher is a very strong motivator. If it is not
embarrassing or threatening, students want to know desperately whether their understanding is
progressing or just drifting aimlessly in concept space. Knowing that they are not allowed to drift
too far off track provides tremendous energy to continue.

Interactive Teaching & Learning

By Lisa Pulsifer, eHow Contributor

Share

Print this article

Successful teachers have many tools at their disposal in order to reach different students that they
encounter. The use of interactive teaching can provide opportunities to students that are not
normally available in traditional situations. Interactive teaching also focuses on the process of
learning and not just presenting information.
Other People Are Reading

Interactive Teaching Techniques

Interactive Teaching Ideas

1.

Identification
o

The basic idea of interactive teaching is that students must be active. Interactive
teaching takes into account that learners have experience and knowledge that they
bring to each situation. Instead of just adding more knowledge to that, teachers
use the students' knowledge to assist in learning more. Instead of just giving the
information to the students, teachers encourage them to come up with ideas on
how it connects to their own world, thus constructing their own meaning of the
material.

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Strategies
o

When a topic is presented, it is important for a teacher to have wide knowledge of

the subject in order to assist in guiding the students in the right direction. The
students are given an opportunity to work in groups to complete a task that uses
their prior knowledge, while combining it with new information. At the end of the
task, they will be required to evaluate what they have learned and how they came
to their conclusions.

Benefits
o

By using interactive teaching, it is easy to see how much the students know. It
also allows the teacher to understand how the students' individual thought
processes are working with the information they are learning. This allows for
more useful planning for future lessons on similar topics. The students gain by
learning facts within a bigger picture, which makes it easier to remember.
Interactive learning is motivating, due to the use of peer groups and positive
interactions between the students and teacher.

Situations
o

Some situations lend themselves better to interactive teaching then others. For
instance, an English class provides ample situations for discussion about literature
among small groups. Even more black-and-white topics, such as math, provide
situations for interactive learning. Simple activities like completing problems in
groups allow the students to discuss and explain to each other how they come up
with their answers.

Considerations
o

When planning interactive learning situations, it is important to keep the

environment and time constraints in mind. Too many tasks should not be planned
at one time because it can lead to frustration for both the student and teacher. The
student will be more concerned about getting the tasks done than about learning,
and the teacher will be too busy keeping the task going to participate in the
process. Small groups are going to lead to some noise, so these activities should
be reserved for times and places where others will not be disturbed.

From active learning to interactive teaching: Individual

activity and interpersonal interaction
Stephen W. Draper, Department of Psychology, University of Glasgow.

This is the paper for a talk at the teaching and learning symposium (2004) at The Hong Kong
University of Science and Technology.
Contents (click to jump to a section)

Introduction

CSCLN

PAL

PRS and classroom voting systems

A theoretical commentary

References

Introduction
In this talk I am going to describe briefly three teaching and learning techniques I
have been involved in developing, and a theoretical story that may be used to
reflect on them. The three techniques are:

CSCLN (computer supported cooperative lecture notes). A class is divided into

groups, each of which must produce lecture notes for one of the lectures and
publish them on the web for the whole class.

PAL (Peer Assisted Learning) (also known as "SI": supplemental instruction),

where students may attend voluntary weekly sessions run not by staff but by
students who recently completed their course.

The use of the PRS classroom voting system. We have seen this put to a
variety of different pedagogic uses, including self assessment questions
(SAQs), to stimulate classroom discussion, and contingent teaching where the
lecturer does not have a fixed linear "script" but rather a diagnostic
branching tree where audience responses to early questions determine what
is done next.

The theoretical story begins with the idea of active learning, which emphasises the importance of
getting a learner to do something rather than only listening or reading passively, and that the
mental processing involved in deciding how to act plays an important role in promoting learning.
However is it just a coincidence that all three of these techniques involve interaction with
"peers", with other learners? Is there something in interaction, rather than only in personal action,
that is important to learning?

CSCLN
The first time CSCLN (Computer Supported Cooperative Lecture Notes) was
implemented, it was accompanied by an evaluation study looking at its value for
students. It was carried out in a class of 59 students as an assessed exercise on a
20 lecture module on Human Computer Interaction, as part of a taught M.Sc. in
Information Technology. Learners were divided into teams, and each team was
required to produce public lecture notes for their assigned lecture on the web, thus
jointly building a complete set of public lecture notes.

The exercise had these features:

It is an experience of cooperative work mediated by computer (by WWW and

email).

A practical exercise on using the WWW on a real task.

Exploring a question and answer format for learning materials. Students were
encouraged to structure their notes as a list of the key questions around
which the lecture revolved, and suggested answers to those questions.

There were several educational ideas justifying this design.

Learner reprocessing: re-expressing material in a new format.

Self-monitoring: by looking at each others' notes, learners gain information

about how well they understood each lecture.

Similarly, the teacher is likely to discover problems in good time either

because the notes are inaccurate or because of students questions when
writing up the notes.

Peer interaction is good for learning content, good for giving opportunities for
self-monitoring, and good for building a community spirit in the class.

In the context of an HCI course, this is also seen as positive as a practical

experience of CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work).

In the context of an information technology course in 1998, it was seen as

positive just by being an occasion for practising web authoring.

The Q&A format as another perspective on material. It could be interesting to

take this further, and construct more course materials as if they were a
reference manual (i.e. indexed by questions).

The effectiveness of this exercise was evaluated using the method of Integrative Evaluation
(Draper et al. 1996), including some observation, sample interviews at various times, and
questionnaires. The main evidence came from a short questionnaire which, since lecture notes
find their main use when revision for exams is being done, was administered directly after the
exam. Of 59 students, 98% responded; and of these 84% said they had referred to the communal
lecture notes, 76% said they found them useful, and most important of all, 69% said they found
them worth the effort of creating their share of them. They also, as a group, rated these web notes
as the third most useful resource (after past exam questions and solutions, and the course
handouts). This shows that, while not the most important resource for students, nor universally
approved by them, this exercise had a beneficial cost-benefit tradeoff in the view of more than
two thirds of the learners.
The exercise, associated teacher materials, and the set of web notes produced by the students
may be seen at http://www.psy.gla.ac.uk/~steve/HCI/cscln/overview.html for both this first
implementation of CSCLN and for two subsequent ones in other classes.

PAL
PAL ("peer assisted learning") consists of organising weekly group meetings for
students on a given course, attended voluntarily but officially recommended by the
department, and led not by a staff member but by a "facilitator" who is a student
who did the course previously. The content discussed may be anything that seems
relevant and important to the groups, but may include administrative details on the
one hand, or deeper implications of the course material on the other. The longer

term aim is to encourage students to help each other, and to seek help both from
others on the course and from those who have done the course earlier.

There are a variety of possible benefits from PAL.

Information supply. It could be that simply the basic information provision is

important: it is impossible to ask many questions in big lectures, and this is a
chance to get them answered.

Extra study time. Some of the weaker first year students at this university
appear (from other studies) to do almost no work outside contact hours.
Simply spending an extra hour a week thinking about and discussing their
work would significantly boost learning since learning depends on the amount
of mental processing done. (In contrast, students with superior personal
study skills would already have adopted the habit of going over and reprocessing their lecture notes every day, and so would not need this aspect
of PAL.)

Generating explanations. Explaining a topic to someone else is powerfully

conducive to learning in the explainer (apart for possibly helping the
questioner). This is the essential cognitive boost from peer interaction, as
studied for instance by Howe et al. (1995, 1998).

Adopting peer interaction outside the sessions. The process may convince
them that peer interaction is a powerful learning resource, and so introduce
them to the practice of doing this outside these particular scheduled group
occasions. This amounts to a general study skill being acquired.

Tinto integration. Spending time interacting in a group of fellow students

helps to bolster academic and social integration (thought by Tinto (1975,
1982) to be the most important predictors of student retention or dropout).
That is, even if the content isn't important to learning outcomes, the process
may make the students feel much more at home in their role and in their
subject, with general positive effects.

Benefits to the facilitators. A separate set of benefits is to the facilitators.

More information on this can be found at http://pal.psy.gla.ac.uk/

PRS and classroom voting systems

One of the weakest points in the teaching at many universities is the use of
lecturing especially to large classes. The common diagnosis of what is weak in this
method is the lack of interactivity. Teachers experience this as a feeling that they
cannot get any discussion going and so lose much sense of how well the material is
going over. A more theoretical view is that because no overt response is required of
students, little mental processing in fact takes place, and hence little learning, at
least during the lecture. A technology aimed directly at this gap is that of interactive

handsets such as PRS, where every student can key in a response to a displayed
MCQ (multiple choice question), and the aggregated results are immediately
displayed to everyone.

We have explored the introduction of this technology for the last two and a half years at our
university, with uses right across the university in biology, medicine, the Vet school, computing
science, psychology, and philosophy. Evaluation showed that from both the teachers' and the
students' viewpoints, it was judged to be of definite value in almost all cases (Draper & Brown,
2004).
The handsets immediately and reliably create greater interactivity in lectures. The simplest use
by a lecturer is to provide a few self-test questions for students, who can check how well they
understood the material and decide from that how much more work they need to do out of class.
Another important use is to launch discussion: a question is displayed, each student registers
their initial view, the "correct" answer if any is NOT announced, and then the class is instructed
to discuss with their neighbours (say, in groups of four) how they would justify their view. A
third use is "contingent teaching". Here the teacher comes, not with a fixed linear script for the
session, but with a branching script (like a diagnostic tree) including many more questions than
can be used, and decides after each audience response which topic or question to use next. The
purpose is to zero in on what this particular audience needs.
Still other possible methods of use are discussed in Draper et al. (2002). Further information on
the developing use of this equipment, including evaluation studies, can be found at:
http://www.psy.gla.ac.uk/ilig/
The question is: what is the crucial aspect of such equipment and uses for improving learning? Is
it simple student activity (pressing buttons rather than sitting still)? Is it student mental activity
(having to choose an answer, having to produce explanations when discussing possible answers
with other students)? Or is it real interactivity between teacher and learners?

A theoretical commentary
A simple view of the idea of active (or interactive) learning is that activity promotes
learning. Sometimes people seem to think this means physical activity: the number
of button pushes, moving around the room. It is true that unless the learner is
awake and alert, learning is unlikely; and some lecturers take seriously the idea that
most students' attention span is 20 minutes at most, and have a break half way
through a session in which they require students to move about physically. However
physical movement itself surely doesn't cause learning. Simply going through a
procedure in a science lab, unless you understand and are thinking about the
science behind the actions, does not in fact lead to any learning. What really
matters, I would argue, is mentally processing and re-processing the ideas,
preferably into a different from than the one you were given. Choosing an answer to

a question, like writing an essay or a computer program, does do that. This is

activity that does promote learning. However it is individual activity. Practising
maths by doing exercises in a textbook is like that. Yet the three techniques above
all involve students interacting with other students: with peers. Is that an accident?

There are several ways in which peer interaction could promote learning. First is that peers
simply act as a prompt to the action that is the actually important thing, which is perhaps the
main point of physical exercise classes: no-one can exercise your body for you, but other
people's presence somehow is a great encouragement to persuade you to actually do it. Really it
could just as well be a textbook or anything else rather than peers, but perhaps they help your
motivation.
A second way peer interaction may be important is that it exposes you to views that contradict
your own. Like getting data you didn't expect from an experiment, this prompts you into thinking
much harder rather than being able to assume it was "obvious".
A third way peers may be important is that in even the simplest discussion, peers tend to make
you produce not just an answer but an explanation for the answer. This is something more than
textbook exercises alone usually do, and producing explanations is more powerful in promoting
learning than just producing an answer. The biggest successes in CSCLN, in PAL, and in using
classroom voting may be when those techniques include peer discussion rather than simple
information giving or sharing.
However the greatest gains may be when not only is each learner active, and not only when they
are truly interacting with peers in the sense of having to produce answers and explanations that
depend on what the other learner does, but where the interaction includes the teacher. Although
many uses of classroom voting are first motivated by a desire to make the students more active,
many teachers after some experience say that they now feel the biggest benefit is in the better
feedback from the learners to the teachers, who now discover much more clearly what this
particular class knows and needs. This is valuable because the teacher can then change what they
do in response to that new information. When this happens, this is truly interactive teaching (not
only interactive learning). In much conventional teaching, teachers only really get good feedback
once a year from exams and course feedback surveys, so the pace of change is once per year.
With the techniques above it is more nearly once a week, where the teacher sees or hears student
responses once a week and may respond by doing some adjustments to their next lecture. The
most advanced use however is true contingent teaching, where a teacher comes prepared to adapt
and react on the spot by planning a tree of diagnostic questions and responses, and the branch
they go down depends on the audience responses to the early questions. This has been introduced
in a statistics course at Glasgow University in some large "tutorial" sessions with a class of up to
200 students.

References
Draper,S.W. (1996) Content and interactivity

Draper,S.W. & Brown, M.I. (2004) "Increasing interactivity in lectures using an electronic voting
system" Journal of Computer Assisted Learning vol.20 pp.81-94
Draper,S.W., Brown, M.I., Henderson,F.P. & McAteer,E. (1996) "Integrative evaluation: an
emerging role for classroom studies of CAL" Computers and Education vol.26 no.1-3, pp.17-32
See also http://staff.psy.gla.ac.uk/~steve/IE.html
Draper,S.W., Cargill,J., & Cutts,Q. (2002) "Electronically enhanced classroom interaction"
Australian journal of educational technology vol.18 no.1 pp.13-23
Howe, C J, Tolmie, A, Greer, K and Mackenzie, M (1995). Peer collaboration and conceptual
growth in physics: task influences on children's understanding of heating and cooling. Cognition
and Instruction,13, 483-503.
Howe, C.J. & Tolmie A. (1998) Computer support in learning in collaborative contexts:
prompted hypothesis testing in physics. Computers and Education, 3/4, 223-235.
Laurillard, D. (1993, 2002) Rethinking university teaching: A framework for the effective use of
educational technology (Routledge: London).
Nicol, D. J. & Boyle, J. T. (2003) "Peer Instruction versus Class-wide Discussion in large
classes: a comparison of two interaction methods in the wired classroom" Studies in Higher
Education vol.28 no.4 pp.457-473 pdf copy
Tinto,V. (1975) "Dropout from Higher Education: A Theoretical Synthesis of Recent Research"
Review of Educational Research vol.45, pp.89-125.
Tinto,V.(1982) "Limits of theory and practice in student attrition" Journal of Higher Education
vol.53 no.6 pp.687-700
Wit,E. (2003) "Who wants to be... The use of a Personal Response System in Statistics Teaching"
MSOR Connections Volume 3, Number 2: May 2003, p.5-11 (publisher: LTSN Maths, Stats &
OR Network) (local copy).
Web site logical path: [www.psy.gla.ac.uk] [~steve] [this page]
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Interactive Teaching Strategies Presentation Transcript

1. Interactive Teaching Strategies http://pinoyguro.net

2. Objectives:- To identify the different learning styles- To explore how

interactive teaching strategies support all learners- To share practical ideas
for whole class teaching

3. Learning Styles Visual Learners - remember images, shapes and colours

Auditory Learners - remember voices, sounds and music Kinaesthetic remember by doing, moving and touching

4. I Remember... 5% of what I hear 10% of what I read 20% of what I

hear and read 30% of what I am shown 50% of what I discuss 75% of
what I do 90% of what I teach others

5. Interactive Teaching Involves facilitator and learners Encourage and

expect learners to participate Use questions to stimulate discussion,
emphasizing the value of answers Give participants hands-on experience
Use teaching aids to gain and retain attention

6. Where to Start Start with clear learning objectives/outcomes Helps

you plan session and helps participants by providing clear view of the
sessions direction Follow an outline and provide copies to participants
Periodically refer to the learning outcomes during the session to remind
everyone where you are and prevent people from getting lost

7. Increase ParticipationResearch shows people will: Listen for only 15-20

minutes without a break Learn more when given an opportunity to process
what they are learning Retain more if they review or use the information
immediately after learning it

8. Lecturing. . . . Lecture is the duct-tape of the teaching world Lecturing

delivers concepts It delivers a lot of information in a short amount of time
Conveys information that is difficult to present in another way

9. Avoid Over Use Because: In a lecture your learners are passive Doesnt
guarantee understanding, no feedback from learners Easily bores the
audience unless well prepared

10. Points to Keep in Mind Lowest retention value of all teaching techniques
Make more interactive by involving the group by frequently stopping and
asking questions Strive for a 30% / 70% split 30% lecture/ 70% active
discussion

11. Why use facilitation rather than lecture in a training session? Participants
like to be actively involved Participants want to share knowledge and ideas
You dont have to be an expert and answer all questions, because learners
can address questions as well Keeps groups attentive and involved

12. Working in Groups Work groups are the workhorse of interactive

teaching Work groups should be standard in every training program!

13. Using Work Groups Stimulates individual input Learners obtain

feedback from multiple perspectives Offers opportunity for peer instruction
Allows you to evaluate their learning

14. How to Utilize Work Groups1. Explain the 1. Monitor progress procedure 2.
Act as a2. Form groups timekeeper &3. Describe task answer questions4.
Specify a time limit 3. Have groups report5. Ask for scribes to entire group6.
Recommend a 4. Process the process information

15. When to Use Group Work Warm ups Practice Session Review Break
Up Lectures Complete assignments

16. Incorporating Interactivity As you select activities, consider the learners

wants and needs, number of participants, size and layout of the room Ask
yourself What am I trying to teach these people? Do I want them to
share ideas and learn from each other? Do I want them to internalize
something on their own? Do I want to test their knowledge? Plan a
variety of activities into your session to help participants stay interested

17. Interactive TechniquesThese techniques have multiple benefits:- the

instructor can easily and quicklyassess if students have really masteredthe
material (and plan to dedicate moretime to it, if necessary), and the process
ofmeasuring student understanding inmany cases is also practice for
thematerial

18. Interactive Techniques- Students are revived from their passivity of

merely listening to a lecture and instead become attentive and engaged, two
prerequisites for effective learning.- These techniques are often perceived as
fun, yet they are frequently more effective than lectures at enabling
student learning.

19. See the list...

20. Instructional IssuesUse of Technology- Slide Presentation- Film ViewingThe Internet

21. Summary Telling is not teaching, nor is listening learning. You must
engage participants in learning activities that lead to a higher level of
understanding and result in the participants ability to apply what he learned
on the job. Interactive teaching is a two-way process of active participant
engagement with each other, the facilitator, and the content.

22. Summary Keep in mind, however, that interactivity is a means to a

greater end participant learning. The most effective learning involves
leading participants to a point of reflection on content What does this mean
to me? How can I use this? Is this better than what Im doing now? This
reflection is the goal of interactivity.