The Key Ingredient that’s Missing in Classrooms

Across the globe, professors have been coping with the challenge of recreating their curriculum in a virtual space. Instead of being met with a classroom full of students, instructors are teaching to a number of muted thumbnails, making it harder to see who's present and actively listening.

This transition moment can be used as a pause to study the efficacy of the traditional classroom learning experience as a whole and see what can and should be moved online vs what needs to be evaluated and tweaked.

Lecturing 

Lectures are the primary means of teaching on college campuses, however, there’s mounting evidence to suggest that they’re not the most effective way of educating. Research found that failure rates of students who are taught lecture-style classes alone are far greater than failure rates of classes that incorporate active learning methods such as class discussions, debates, simulations, and polling questions. 

Lecture classes generally last about 60 minutes, however, attention spans only last roughly 10-20 minutes. To combat waning concentration, Jess Gifkins, a Research Fellow at the Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, suggests:

"Use a different approach to learning each 15 minutes (which means changing the way students are engaged, rather than changing topics). Active learning promotes recall and a deeper understanding of the material, as students are engaging with the content rather than simply listening to it. Passively listening to a lecture can be useful at promoting learning at the lower end of a taxonomy of learning such as – to ‘remember’ and ‘understand’ – but is not as good at promoting higher-level skills like ‘apply’, ‘analyse’ and ‘evaluate’." - Jess Gitkins

Polling

Enabling question breaks is a good tool to gauge if students are paying attention. It’s also a good way to tell what’s sticking and what isn’t, allowing professors to go over certain concepts more in detail before moving along with their lecture. 

In-Person 

Clickers are the most popular tool for polling in college classrooms. They’re relatively inexpensive and can be used in multiple classes at the same time.

Online

Zoom’s polling feature for meetings allows you to create single choice or multiple choice polling questions. Professors can launch the poll at various points during class and gather the responses from their students. Instructors will also have the ability to download a polling report once the class has ended. 

Discussion Breaks 

Another way to break up the period and engage the classroom is by including discussion breaks. Discussion helps students articulate what they’ve learned and allows them to formulate applications of the principles taught in lectures.

In-Person

One common discussion technique used when examining text is the Socratic seminar in which the leader asks open-ended questions. Within the context of the discussion, students listen closely to the comments of others, thinking critically for themselves, and articulate their thoughts and their responses to the thoughts of others. Professors can mirror this method to facilitate class discussions about lecture topics and assigned readings.

Online

The same in-person methods can be used online. Zoom’s breakout rooms allow you to split the classroom up into separate groups. Professors can choose to split the students into these separate sessions automatically or manually and can switch between sessions at any time.

Simulations

Simulations are another way to boost engagement while providing a hands-on way to explore classroom concepts in depth. They’re a nice compliment to lecture as they offer a space to put theories into practice. Instead of just learning audibly, which has a retention rate of 20%,  students can learn by doing, which has a retention rate of 90%. Additionally, they can be easily woven into in-person classes as well as online.

Companies such as Processim Labs make simulation tools that are completely mobile so instructors won’t need access to computer labs and students aren’t required to carry their laptops around to participate. However if the lab experience is what you’re looking for, there are many companies that fit the bill such as Responsive or Capsim. 

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