Good teaching is interactive!

Parents always worry about their children’s education. Some start thinking about what school their children should attend even before they are born. Although thinking about school early on is a great idea (we could explore that in another post!), parents sometimes forget that they are their child’s first teacher! That means that good education starts as soon as they are born.

One of the characteristics of a good teacher or good education in the classroom, is that education and good teaching is interactive. What does that mean? Well, variety is the spice of life and every good teacher knows that you have to use a variety of teaching and learning styles that appeal to the different learning strengths of the students. For example, schools are now using Interactive Whiteboards to make learning more interactive. The use of this tool helps the visual, kinesthetic and auditory learners to create memorable lessons that stick in their minds.

But how can parents apply this at home with their children?

When playing with your children or just talking about any topic, you could do some the following:

• Question them, rather than lecture: When a child wants to know about something, ask them questions that will help them think about possibilities, rather than just give them the answer.
• Use hands-on experience: Any opportunity that your child can experience and manipulate the learning, will get stuck better in their heads. Crafts, manipulatives, building materials, and science kits, are some examples of hands on experience.
• Share knowledge and ideas: Brainstorm together. When your child is involve in a problem-solving situation, it helps them to think about and come up with solutions themselves, rather than being told what the solution is. This way they can absorb the lesson much better!

If you still have no clue what I mean, think about the show, Dora the Explorer. In this show, kids interact with the TV. Dora asks a question and she waits for the kids to answer. This is an example of interactive teaching for young children.

Do you have some ideas how you can make teaching more interactive at home? Please share!