“About two-thirds of classroom time is devoted to talking at the tertiary level.
About two-thirds of the talking time, the person talking is the teacher at the tertiary level.
About two-thirds of the teachers’ talk is “direct” at the tertiary level.”
Sociologists normally define interaction as a process that takes place when people act in relation to one another in a social context. It is a process in which social actors relate to one another, especially in face-to-face encounter. Interaction can therefore take place between people and not in an isolated setting. The presence of other is essential. The concept rests on an important distinction between action and behaviour.
While behaviour consists of all that a person does, action is behaviour shaped by how other people will interpret and respond to that behaviour. If we have to describe action in simple plain English, without any sociological sheen, it simply means that, a person tries to think how the other person, who is in contact with him, understands him, assesses his probable reaction, anticipates the other’s response and then acts. (When we are trying to put the sociological concept of action in simple English, we are already trying the above process!). Thought process based on meaning is what distinguishes action from behaviour and this lies at the core of interaction as a social process. The capacities to empathise, to be able to think feels and enact like another person, is essential for social interaction to take place.
In this background it becomes a cliché if we persist to prove that class room is a site of social interaction. Classroom is where knowledge is shared and sharing can take place effectively only when the other is taken to consideration. Interaction is a dynamic process, not just a static concept. Anselm Strauss rightly characterizes this as a negotiated order: it occurs in and through people negotiating with each other. Teacher-student interaction is probably one of the most intense social situations we can encounter and which has far reaching implications.
Teacher-student interaction is intense and has serious implications because the student learns to practice critical thinking. A teacher also practices critical thinking but at present our focus is on students. To practice critical thinking, students need to participate in the discourse of the discipline--to think, speak, and be listened to as they participate in the discipline's particular mode of inquiry. Students will not get enough practice just by talking to the instructor, and very little by just listening to the instructor. Students develop competency and become critical thinkers in classroom that provides opportunities for intensive, structured interaction among students.
There is another social dimension to this interaction setting. The teaching learning process takes place in a controlled environment. Order is given equal prominence, if not more, with the way in which the express objective is pursued, i.e., sharing of knowledge. To complicate things further, teacher-student interaction, by its very nature, can be characterized as a systematic and intensive social contact, necessitating a mechanism that maintains order and control. The variables associated with the process of classroom interaction are determined by school roles and the structure of the lesson itself. In the course of the interaction, the teacher has the following roles: instructional, motivational, evaluative, managerial, and social. All classroom speech acts can be categorized according to these functions. Traditionally, the teacher controls learning and behaviour in the classroom with these kinds of speech acts.
Further, research on gender, class and race in education has examined the relationship between teacher and students in the classroom. It has been noted that different types of student groups receive varying amounts of teacher time in the education setting. It has been normally observed that boys receive higher amount of teachers’ time than the girls. It is interesting that this factor is counted as a major reason for the differences in education status of men and women. In the Indian context however it is usually the girls who perform better than boys and the links leading to this situation needs deeper exploration.
When we want to engage in finding ways to enhance class room participation in higher classes it is necessary to remember this unequal status of the participants of social interaction. Those with power are frequently least aware of – or least willing to acknowledge-its existence. Those with less power are often most aware of its existence.
Normally how does the interaction occur in a class room? Contemporary education at all levels tends to cast students in the role of content consumers; they are presented material which has been developed by others - teachers, vendors, instructional designers or other professional developers - and are expected to demonstrate that they have absorbed the content in some way. At the level of higher classes, the learning process is very weak as the class environment is based entirely on rote memorization. There is no provision for the development of intellectual and thinking skills among students who are given very little time for active participation and interaction. The teacher seems to be in a very dominant role in the class. Unfortunately, the poorly structured classrooms quickly deteriorate into a vacuous waste of time.
Lecturing is a very effective and time tested method of teaching is undisputable. However, we need to remember that lecturing is not the only method of imparting knowledge. Using questions as an effective tool finds separate sessions and need not be repeated here again. It needs to be noted that in both the lecturing method and questioning method the primary role is assigned to the teacher. It is the teacher who lectures, who initiates discussion and concludes. The asymmetrical relation between teacher students imposes its own limitations. Further, in the social sciences field where the scope for having a differing view point is very large, even questions as a tool of interaction is bounded by the way questions are framed.
Interaction in the class room is not just between the teacher and student. It also happens between students-students and students-content. Since the students do not have much choice as far as their co-students are concerned, and the class room itself becomes a microcosm of the outside world, the social relationship needs attention. Students not only share the content of the course drawn from different sources including the teacher but we also see bullying, bonding and sexual harassment. In the higher classes tapping this source of diversity is essential. Directing one’s energy to this area can definitely lead to diversity in role, content and procedure. Diversity then becomes an opportunity rather than a threat.
The single most important challenge before the teacher in a class room is how to make learning a participatory exercise. Researchers have identified various types of strategies that enhance class room participation. When we say participation it is implicit that the teacher too is a participant and collaborator rather than a dictator (pun intended). Models have been given, different methods have been identified and key elements have been listed. To name just a few, randomly, we have Array Management Model based on Array Interaction Model, key elements identified by Walberg and Anderson’s Law and some basic rules given by Chet Myers. H Walberg identifies seven factors as key elements of effective teaching: engaged academic learning type, use of positive reinforcement, cooperative learning activities, positive class atmosphere, higher-order questioning, cues and feedback and use of advanced organisers. Interaction styles have also been classified as reluctant, cooperative and marginal.
Chet Myers suggests some basic rules for creating an interactive class room. He suggests that, classes can start with the statement of a problem or controversy, arranging or rearranging the available classroom space such that interaction is encouraged, effective use of silence so that students have time to reflect on the problem at hand, arrive at possible answers without too much of intrusion from the teacher, friendly atmosphere between the actors (teachers addressing the students by their name, for example).
Collaborative learning and group learning have also been frequently advocated to effectively create an interactive classroom. In all these suggestions, it should be noted that the role of teacher becomes more important and the work that the teacher has to put in increases considerably. Fundamental to these suggestions is the recognition of the fact that there is no one method of teaching and learning that can be applied to different groups of students at different points of time. The background from which both the students and teachers arrive assumes crucial significance in this context. Hence, while designing collaborative tasks it is imperative that the background of students needs to be taken in to account apart from relating it to the objective of the course and the subsequent tests that may be administered. Once the task is given the teacher should become a facilitator rather than resorting to lecturing,
It would not be fair if we speak only of the opportunities and do not pay any attention to the structural constraints that a teacher faces while imparting knowledge and interacting with students in the classroom. Teachers do not have autonomy as far as the content of the curriculum is concerned, let alone the course they want to offer; framing of the curriculum itself has become a site of contention and dominance. They are not able to decide the number of students that a course they offer can contain. Structure of evaluation is decided by outsiders and the input from the teacher who is continually in touch with the students is of marginal significance when the final awarding of grades is concerned. The role of teacher is reduced to mere agents of information transfer where the content is provided by anonymous authority figures and the methodology is decided by “experts in the field.” These academic issues are then administered by bureaucrats and this bureaucracy is built upon suspicion rather than trust and freedom. This is not to deny that individual teachers have attempted and succeeded in innovations. This is an exception however rather than the norm. Added to this is the matter of number of students in the class room. Designing collaborative activities and providing resources for such a large number of students is simply not feasible. We also have to remember that there is a severe shortage of essential infrastructure including toilets for girls and lady teachers. In short, what we witness is overall systemic failures of the educational system.
Selected Reference:
1. Anderson, T 2003 Getting the mix right again: An updated and theoretical rationale for interaction. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 4(2).Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/149/230
2. Franks, Anton and Carey Jewitt 2000 The Meaning of Action in Learning and Teaching, Institute of Education, London
3. Halsey et al 1997 Education: Culture, Economy, Society, Oxford University Press, London
4. Maley, Alan 2003 The Dividends from Diversity, 16th Educational Conference, Melbourne
5. Sener, John In Search of Student-Generated Content in Online Education, e-mentor, No 4 (21) / 2007 www.e-mentor.edu.pl/eng
