Developing a More Interactive Classroom: A Continuing Odyssey

This paper describes a 30-year individual transition from traditional lecturing to more interactive undergraduate teaching. The advent of required evaluations by students in the late 1970s spurred efforts to be more responsive to students' questions and then to stimulate more questions and participation by students, and eventually led to giving formal credit for class participation. Small-group discussions (collaborative learning groups), simulation games, neighbor talk, and split-class debates were added later. Improved learning and use of student names, and the muddiest point technique, have been added more recently, as have extensive small-group class presentations. In the course on deviant groups, regular lectures are no longer given. Secret ballot evaluations by students have confirmed the value of these changes, most of which resulted from conversations with colleagues. Small-group discussions and group presentations to the class seem most valuable as general interactive substitutes for lecturing.