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Interactive Teaching Strategies

1. Think-pair-share is an effective strategy where students think individually, pair up to agree on an answer, and then share their conclusion with the class. This encourages engagement, communication and memory retention. 2. Brainstorming in groups allows students to generate creative ideas and learn from each other. Interactive brainstorming helps develop collaboration skills. 3. Buzz sessions have students discuss a topic in focused groups to share ideas and learn from each other's experiences and perspectives. The teacher provides keywords to spark conversations.

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Rhea Lopez
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25 views

Interactive Teaching Strategies

1. Think-pair-share is an effective strategy where students think individually, pair up to agree on an answer, and then share their conclusion with the class. This encourages engagement, communication and memory retention. 2. Brainstorming in groups allows students to generate creative ideas and learn from each other. Interactive brainstorming helps develop collaboration skills. 3. Buzz sessions have students discuss a topic in focused groups to share ideas and learn from each other's experiences and perspectives. The teacher provides keywords to spark conversations.

Uploaded by

Rhea Lopez
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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3 Effective interactive teaching strategies to encourage speech in your classroom

First, I want to put some activities in the spotlight. The following interactive student
activities are three of the most effective ways to encourage more speech in your
classroom.
1. Think, pair and share

Set a problem or a question around a certain topic, and pair up your


students. Give each pair of students enough time so they can reach a proper
conclusion, and permit the kids to share their conclusion in their voice. This way your
students will be engaged, communicating, and remember more of the class than ever
before.
2. Brainstorming

Interactive brainstorming is mostly performed in group sessions. The


process is useful for generating creative thoughts and ideas. Brainstorming helps
students learn to work together, and above all, learn from each other. You’ll be surprised
by all the great ideas they come up with! Check out these 8 fun brainstorming apps you
can use in your classroom, or use BookWidgets’ Mindmap widget to structure thinking.
3. Buzz session

Participants come together in session groups that focus on a single topic.


Within each group, every student contributes thoughts and ideas. Encourage discussion
and collaboration among the students within each group. Everyone should learn from
each other’s input and experiences. As a teacher, you could give your students some
keywords to spark the conversation.
Of course, there are many other interactive teaching ideas as well. I split up the
activities in different categories:
Individual student activities
Student pair activities
Student group activities
Interactive game activities
Individual student activities
4. Exit slips

These are best used at the end of the class session. You’ll ask the students
to write for one minute on a specific question. It might be generalized to “what was the
most important thing you learned today”. Then, you can decide if you are going to open
up a conversation about it in your next class. You can ask them if they still remember
what they wrote down. Need a digital exit slip template? Try this
one from BookWidgets and learn more about the possibilities of an exit slip. Looking for
inspiration? Check this out! You will find 60 examples of digital exit tickets.
5. Misconception check

Discover students’ misconceptions. See if students can identify what is the


correct answer when given a false fact. It’s useful when going over a previous lesson. It
encourages students to think deeply and wager all the possibilities.
6. Circle the questions

Make a worksheet or a survey that has a list of questions (make them


specific) about your topic, and ask students to circle (or check) the ones they don’t know
the answers to. Then, let them turn in the paper.

1. Think-pair-repair
In this twist on think-pair-share, pose an open-ended question to your
class and ask students to come up with their best answer. Next, pair
learners up and get them to agree on a response. Get two pairs
together, and the foursome needs to do the same thing. Continue until
half the group goes head to head with the other half. If your students
are online, breakout rooms in your conferencing software let you do
the same thing virtually. Here’s how it works in Zoom.

2. Improv games
If your classroom is museum-level quiet no matter how you try to liven
things up, try some low-stakes (read: not embarrassing) improv
activities. In the three things in common game, pairs figure out the
most unexpected things they share (this can also be done online in
breakout rooms). Or challenge your students to count to 20 as a group
with one person saying each number – but no one is assigned a
number, and if two people talk at the same time, everyone starts again
at 1. (If some students are in the room and some remote, you’ll need
classroom audio with full-room coverage for this to work. Here’s how
Nureva audio can help.)

3. Brainwriting
You’ve probably tried brainstorming, but have you tried brainwriting?
In this approach, students are given time to come up with their own
ideas individually before sharing them out loud or posting them to an
online whiteboard or other shared platform. Building in space for
individual reflection leads to better ideas and less groupthink.

4. Jigsaw
Help students build accountability by teaching each other. Start by
dividing them into “home groups” (4 or 5 people works well). Again,
breakout rooms in Zoom or Google Meet make this simple even if
everyone is remote. Assign each person in the group a different topic
to explore – they’ll regroup to work with all the students from the other
groups who are exploring the same idea. Once they’ve mastered the
concept, students return to their home group and everyone shares
newfound expertise.

5. Concept mapping
Collaborative concept mapping is a great way for students to step
away from their individual perspectives. Groups can do this to review
previous work, or it can help them map ideas for projects and
assignments. In pre-COVID times, you may have covered classroom
walls with sticky notes and chart paper – now there are many online
tools that make it simple to map out connections between ideas.

6. The one-minute paper


How much could you explain in one minute? At the end of class, set a
timer and ask students to record their most eye-opening revelation or
biggest question. This activity lets students reflect on learning and
build writing skills – plus you’ll get a window into their understandings
and misunderstandings. Here are more prompts you can use to get
students writing.

7. Real-time reactions
When students are watching a video, a mini lecture or another
student’s presentation, have them share their real-time reactions. This
helps students spot trends and consider new points of view. You can
set up a hashtag to allow for live tweeting, or use the chat function in
your conferencing software.

8. Chain notes
Write several questions on pieces of paper and pass each to a student.
The first student adds a response (use a timer to keep things moving
quickly) and then passes the page along to gather more responses.
Multiple contributions help build more complete understanding. A
digital alternative involves using shared documents that multiple
students are invited to edit. Then your class can examine the
responses and identify patterns and missing pieces.

9. Idea line up
Choose a question that has a range of responses, and then ask
students where they stand – literally. If you’re not social distancing,
have them come to the front of the classroom and organize themselves
in a line, based on where on the spectrum of answers they find
themselves. In a blended classroom or a physically distanced one, get
them to place themselves on a virtual number line instead.

10. Mystery quotation


Test how well students can apply their understanding of an issue or
theoretical position. After they’ve explored a topic, show them a
quotation about it they’ve never seen before. Their task is to figure out
the point of view of the person behind the quotation – and justify it to
the class. Students can debate this issue in small breakout groups
before beginning a whole-class discussion.

11. Idea speed dating


Have students cycle through your space, or through breakout rooms in
Zoom or Google Meet, sharing insights about a topic or their elevator
pitch for an upcoming project. As they present their learnings multiple
times on several “speed dates,” students’ presentation skills and
perspectives will grow.

12. Peer review


The process of peer review is as old as academia, and it’s never too
early to start. Have students swap drafts of their essays, proposals or
lab reports, and then come up with comments and questions for each
other. Make sure to be clear about what the goals are (using rubrics
helps). For example, students could identify compelling arguments,
unanswered questions and holes in logic.

13. Quescussion
Ever played Jeopardy? Then you’re ready for quescussion. It’s like a
standard class discussion but only questions are allowed (students
call “Statement!” if someone slips up). If you play this game at the
beginning of the course, the questions can help shape your course. If
you have students both in the room and calling in from a distance,
make sure the remote learners get equal airtime and that your audio
system is picking up student voices clearly.

14. Sketchnoting
Instead of taking traditional lecture notes, try getting your students
to sketch a picture that represents what they’ve learned during class.
Remember, it’s not about the quality of the art – it’s about how drawing
prompts students to visualize their understanding and look at their
learning from a different perspective.

15. Empathy mapping


Take a page from the designers’ handbook and get students to explore
deeper by embracing a perspective. It’s deceptively simple – write
down what a person says, thinks, does and feels. The ability to slow
down and immerse yourself in another point of view is valuable. In
design thinking, empathy maps help designers create better products
for users. But this process can be just as valuable for analyzing
characters from literature, historical figures or political stances.

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