Interactivity

Is it necessary for the students to be active participants in the teaching sessions, or do they learn just as much through listening to the teacher’s presentations? Today the general view is that it is important that the students both listen and participate actively, and that there is mutual communication between students and tutor. It is the learning content and the goal of the course that decide to which degree the students should be involved, and there is a difference between theoretical and practical subjects.

Behaviourist approaches focus on the teacher as solely responsible that learning takes place, and on the teacher’s presentation of the subject matter as the basis of the teaching process. Learning takes place as memorising, performing tasks based on detailed instructions, and repetition. It is important to receive response on the stimuli that are transmitted, and this is done through short tests with verifiable contents. Prompt feedback with a focus on positive comments is important to enhance learning. Thus, it is the short-term verifiable results for the individual student that constitute the teaching product, and the learning process as such is secondary to the presentation and the goal.

The constructivist approach regards active participation on the part of the learners as the teaching foundation, and the lecture as an important contribution to the students’ own knowledge formation. The important aspects of teaching are that students regard the content as meaningful, that there is room for students to ask amplifying questions in cooperation with fellow students and to try out their own reasoning and use their own examples in order to understand and reflect on the subject matter. The role of the tutor is thus to facilitate the development of curiosity, both an inquiring and an evaluating attitude on the part of the students, so that they are able to participate in a meaningful way in the teaching situation. The constructivist approach thus focuses on the process of learning rather on the learning result at any given time. It challenges the traditional roles, that of student and tutor as well as that of instructor and participant, in order to make them more synchronous, that is active-active instead of active-passive.

Historically, behaviourist and constructivist approaches have been strongly opposed on the issue of whether to focus on the learning process or the short-term learning result. It seems that the tension between the concepts of process and development on the one hand and the linear productivity concepts on the other (Svensson 2000) takes on an increasing importance in organisations other than teaching institutions. The concept of organisational learning (Argyris 1992) has softened the division between the two approaches. There is now a greater degree of transition between the two major schools, and there is more focus on students’ active participation in the learning processes and interactivity in the teaching. This is expressed by Jonassen & Land as the “sociocultural turn” in the theories of learning and education (Lahn 2004:76). Thus, the issue of students’ active participation in the teaching situation is in focus.

The following section will elaborate on the characteristics of the virtual classroom and the special challenges and opportunities made possible by facilitating for interactivity.