interactive classroom versus non-interactive class
Uploaded by meena on Apr 19, 2006
Willmott once said,” education is the apprenticeship of life.” True it may sound but education has its own constraints too. Importance of education lies in ‘how’ it is imparted than ‘what’ is imparted. Educationists worldwide suggest that there exist two types of teaching methods. One is where the teacher speaks i.e. authoritarian classroom and the other where there is interaction between the teacher and the student i.e. democratic classroom.
In a undemocratic classroom situation, the teacher actively participates and the students are mere listeners. There is one-way communication between them. In a democratic class, there is equal participation from both the teacher and the student. The motive of both these methods is learning but the authoritarian classroom has more loopholes than the democratic one.
The arrogant tone of a teacher imperially commands, “you will submit three projects”, “you must attend class regularly”, “no one is allowed to talk in my lecture”, “pay attention or you will be out of the classroom” etc. all of us have gone through this ‘Hitler’s rule’. But when we think of the benefits of this method, the graph stands on zero. This is because; in a classroom when only the teacher participates he doesn’t get any feedback from his students. He fails to understand their needs and their point of view. He has no means of finding out whether has students have understood the topic or no. some years ago this was the picture of every classroom lecture. But with more and more awareness, the situation is changing. Many schools and college have adopted the interactive classroom method and the students have definitely reaped the benefits of the same. We can list a few advantages of this method like,
1) it leads to effective learning and also teaching.
2) The pupils are more involved in the classroom lessons and don’t feel the pressure while studying.
3) A sustained interest is created in the subject which makes studying easier for the students.
As Emerson rightly said, “the secret of education lies in respecting the pupil”, hence there can be no better way of respecting the pupil than a interactive classroom.