What is Interactive? Really?

 I've gotten frustrated looking for interactive math activities for my students.  Looking at several definitions of interactive, most agree there is a two way exchange of information such as between two people or a person and a computer.  The other thing is there is some sort of response involved.

To me, this means that one of the people is not just filling in blanks or something similar.  There is a response involved so they are actually active.

Unfortunately, too many "interactive" activities I find are nothing more than having the student read something and answer questions regarding the reading.  This is nothing more than filling out a work sheet, in my opinion.

One step up are the situations where students work together to fill out the sheets where there are questions which require the discussion, otherwise there is no real interaction.  I love those "interactive" notes but the reality is I don't see them as truly interactive because the teacher tells them what to put in, they write it down before gluing it into their binder.  Its really only a one way flow.

To me, an interactive activity might be to divide pairs of students into groups of two.  Give each student a worksheet with different problems but which have the same answer.  This requires them to talk to each other to see if their answers are the same or if they are different, why.  This meets the definition of interactive.

I'll even accept an activity which has students physically doing something such as rolling dice, interviewing people to collect data, or completing an online lesson which requires them to answer questions as they work through the lesson such as many of the lessons at Khan Academy.  Students are not just passively learning.

Many sites such as Kahoot, or IXL actually meet my idea of interactive because the computer provides a response to the student.  In Kahoot, students are told immediately if they were correct and at the end, the computer provides them with the correct answer and shows how many chose each possible answer.

On the other hand IXL does more than just show the correct answer.  They show how to do the problem correctly. In the past, I've told my students stop and check the solution to see where they might make a mistake.  It hasn't worked so this year, I'm going to require they do the work on a separate sheet of paper and then write the corrected version next to it before turning it in.  Too many just want to move on.  I think this will allow students to slow down and learn to examine their work.

Interactive activities require the student to be active, taking part in their learning, otherwise, they are not going to learn as well.  You may not agree with my viewpoint but we can agree to disagree.  My attitude on what constitutes interactive learning has been changing over the past few years.

Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.