- Learning centers or stations are one of the tried-and-true organizing strategies for interactive learning. Students either choose a center or rotate between them at predetermined intervals. Instructors can have standard centers set up, such as math manipulatives, listening center, classroom library, art materials, writing activities and an observation area. Teachers can also create centers that reflect a particularly curricular theme, unit, project or task. For example, if students are studying the properties of water, instructors can design four or five interactive stations that may include an area for designing boats, a sink filled with water for testing whether objects float or sink, a listening center with a story about water, a technology center with a website or video game about water, and an area for examining water with a magnifying glass or a microscope.
- Setting student groups on a group task or to solve a multiple-step problem is an ideal interactive learning method. Teachers may provide marbles, ramps, platforms and gates and have groups design structures that make marbles move the fastest or slowest, or jump the highest or furthest. Teachers may ask students to make a prediction of how many blocks it takes to frame the perimeter of the classroom, and then have them complete the task to determine the accuracy of their predictions. In collective group tasks, it is important for teachers to observe student groups and ensure that everyone has a role or a voice and is included in the activity.
- One of the more rewarding interactive learning methods results in students creating a performance or presentation that they share with classmates, other students in the school or parents. Host a poetry café where students read poetry they have written and you serve lemonade and cookies. Stage a class mystery play based on a "Nate the Great" story. Have student groups create their own websites demonstrating knowledge gleaned from a unit. Create big picture books in groups and have students read them to kindergarten buddies. Transform the classroom into an art gallery featuring student work, and host an art opening.
