Interaction with Students
Ongoing interaction or communication between students and teachers is often difficult to achieve. When classroom interaction occurs, a teacher may not be able to identify all the relevant factors that were used to develop a meaningful dialogue. Furthermore, there are class sessions in which an instructor receives minimal feedback from students in spite of following a lesson plan that elicited a great discussion in a previous class.To improve your ability to communicate with students you must set the tone early. Start by giving your students some ground rules for discussion, and engage them with comfortable, simple discussion topics and tasks early in the semester. Later, when effective class rapport is established, you can move more easily to more challenging problems, subjects, and discussion formats. The following are some beginning suggestions for getting your students to interact more often and move effectively in your class:
- Before class, write out questions that you are going to ask students so that the inquiries are not vague.
- Be sure that your silent (or wait) time exceeds ten seconds.
- Be prepared to break you question down to more simple questions in the event that students do not answer the first time.
- Call on those who do not participate.
- Have students write out an answer to a problem or question.
- Become aware of and watch facial and body gestures as you ask/answer questions.
- Develop a language of respect so that you do not alienate students when you disagree with or misunderstand them.
There are many good resources on the different facets of teacher/ student interaction. Some of those are listed here, so you can develop a better understanding of classroom communication topics:
Engaging Students, Teaching Resource Center, University of Virginia