Week 14: Increasing Students' Interaction in the Classroom

Cristian Alberto Menjívar Alemán

Week 14: 10 Benefits of Getting Students to Participate in Classroom Discussions and Increase Student Interaction with "Think-Pair-Share" and "Circle Chats"

The articles for this week provide information about the benefits of getting students to participate in the class. In the first article what made me want to read more about it was the fact that provides 10 different benefits of having students participate in the class.

My favorite quote from the article was “If a student is dozing off, texting, quietly chatting or otherwise not attending to what’s happening that student can be called on or the student next to the offender can be asked to respond.” It is interesting to see that sometimes students are not paying attention in the class but then if you call their attention they may not want to do it again because they will feel ashamed to be called on in front of the whole class.

Something I learned from this article and that every teacher should know is that participation engages students, a good question can pique their interest, make them wonder why, get them to think and motivate them to make connections with the content.

The second article presents activities and other benefits to increase students’ interaction.  Ever since I discovered this great technique of Think-Pair-Share I said to myself that I would be applying it in my English classes. I consider that is important to give students the chance first to analyze on their own any question you may have asked, then compare with another person (peer-checking) so they can see if they are in a good path or have the same ideas, after that they will be able to express or share with the class what they have worked on.

To sum up, teachers should encourage their students to participate in the class and share their ideas to check understanding of what has been taught. 

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