What experiences have you had with interactivity in learning environment? How did the interaction (or lack of interaction) affect your learning? Your enjoyment?

Hi everyone!

This is a very interesting topic! I think there are many different ways to “interact” while learning. It could be a physical thing like human interactions or interaction with objects. It could also be an emotional interaction where you feel something and it just stays with you because it was such a memorable experience. It could be a combination of both or with some other factors.

I genuinely enjoy interactions with other people, objects, and resources while learning new things, but I also value my own time (alone time) where I can let those new ideas to sink in, giving me an opportunity to reflect, and finalize my learning. The solo reflection part has been crucial for me, and I think this reflection part is what leads to next whether that be going further into that topic, or connect to something very different.

As an ESL student, interactivity is and has been a very important aspect in learning. Discussion with my peers and doing activities together simply helped me scaffold my understanding on what we were learning. When learning only happens in a one way direction (student just taking in information ) and interactivity is eliminated, it is very easy for me to get lost and get stuck in that mud of confusion.

For me personally, revisiting the topic that I was learning in different ways were one of the most effective ways to own that learning. I have a short story that I’d like to share that may or may not sound kind of nerdy, but here it is.

I was a high school student in Japan, and one day I was on a bus, standing, to go to school. The bus had to make a sudden stop mid way, and everyone on the bus, especially those who were standing lost balance and fell forward. Few days after that incident, I was in my physics class and we were learning about Newton’s law of motion. Newton’s first law of motion: “Every body remains in a state of rest or uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force”.

As soon as I heard this and visualized it in my head, I remembered about the incident on the bus from few days ago. I connected so well to this portion of the lecture especially because I experienced it with my own body and it just made sense. This may sound very dramatic but I even felt like I owned Newton’s laws of motion because I never experienced that sense of “understanding” something this clearly, especially with physics. This is just one example of my experience with interactivity.

This may not be for everyone but I think learning experience that connects mind and body, stays longer in general. This experience is from when I was in high school but I still remember it clearly! Ever since this day, I process new materials that I learn by making personal connections or by creating a whole new experience around it to make it memorable.

 

Reference:

González, D., & Daennagonzalez. (n.d.). Newton’s Laws of Motion. Retrieved November 02, 2020, from https://issuu.com/daennagonzalez/docs/newton___s_laws_of_motion