Advantages and Disadvantages of Interactive Learning Environment

ADVANTAGES AND ENVIRONMENT DISADVANTAGES OF INTERACTIVE LEARNING

Interactive learning in the classroom help students prepare more successfully for the outside world than those who do not. Engaged learners who actively participate in their own education are more apt to remember more from a lesson and then transfer newly acquired skills to different situations. Interactive learning in a classroom is to maintain a teaching style, like the Socratic Method, that encourages healthy debate between students and the teacher. Although it may sound simple, it is hard to actually foster an atmosphere in which students feel free to question authority because they fear reprisal or embarrassment. The development of true critical-thinking skills, however, requires just such an open and honest exchange of ideas. Discussion in class is one of the interactive learning during lectures. When the lecturer ask his/her students to discuss about a specific topic in class, it will helps to motivate students toward further learning, to allow students to apply information in new settings, or to develop students' thinking skills, then discussion is preferable to lecture. Students are able to express out their own opinions during the class. They will have chance to talk in front of their friends and lecturer. So it will help them to gain self confidence to talk. Interactive environment is good for the learners to present themselves in front of everyone where this is the time to train them to be courage enough for their future work or career presentation. It motivates students and helps them to improve their communication skills with people. So they can be more active during class. Furthermore, it allows lecturers to make effective use of classroom resources. Lecturers will be able to analyze his/her students learning capacity easily. The feedback from student will be as fast as possible. Interactive environment bring conducting brainstorm sessions for the students that can help students to work in a group. So they can learn how to work in a group. At the same time, it makes the learning sessions more interesting and fun so that the students will have more intention to learn new things. Students sometimes learn better from each other than they do from the teacher. Encouraging cooperative learning among peers through projects or assignments creates a more relaxed classroom environment while also allowing the teacher to act as a facilitator instead of a lecturer. However, certain specific obstacles are associated with the use of active learning including limited class time; a possible increase in preparation time; the potential difficulty of using active learning in large classes; and a lack of needed materials, equipment, or resources.

The single greatest barrier of all, however, is the fact that faculty members' efforts to employ active learning involve the risks that students will not participate, use higherorder thinking, or learn sufficient content, that faculty members will feel a loss of control, lack necessary skills, or be criticized for teaching in unorthodox ways. Each obstacle or barrier and type of risk, however, can be successfully overcome through careful, thoughtful planning. If there are too many students in the class, some of them will not have chance to speak out their ideas or opinions during their lecture. Hereby, it will affect students moral and motivation. At the same time, the crowd will cause noise pollution so that it will affect all students concentration negatively. We can say that lecturers are also playing an important role to protect the serenity of the class to ensure his/her students to have an effective learning.. As a result, there are a lot of advantages and disadvantages of interactive learning environment. As a university student, my opinion is, interactive learning environment has more advantages then disadvantages. Even there are hundreds of students in class, if the lecturer is able to control his/her students, and if we give our full attention to the teacher, we will be able to see the positive effects of interactive learning.