Interaction in class

If we want that our students have a significant learning, we have to use the appropriate methodology, which must be based on motivation and interaction. How will students interact with me and between themselves? In my history of Spain lessons I will use:

• Blog: I will use the blog of the subject as a meeting point outside the classroom, when my students are at home, for instance. On the blog, they can keep working and talking with me and other students, even from different classrooms.
• Wikispaces: it is a web where students and I can do some collaborative activities, such as the creation of a story or some debates on different aspects that relate our history and current life situations.
• Discussions and debates about activities: the methodology I will use in my lessons goes from the specific things to general ones. I will give my students different kind of documents, made by me or historical documents, and they must work with them at home, discussing about the content at classroom during the lessons.
• Group work: some activities will be done by my students in group, therefore, they must organize and communicate themselves to get a good mark.

The main advantage of using motivation in class is that the students can learn by themselves, that is to say that through interaction they can debate about the most important issues of the subject and the can learn and teach at the same time and from the teacher and even from each other. Thereby, students can get a significant learning.

However, interaction has also a main downside, time schedule. Maybe, students debate about some issue and the debate can extend in time and it can change all the planning.

Despite this disadvantage, I believe interaction is a key tool for 21st century education.