DEVELOPING A MORE INTERACTIVE CLASSROOM - A CONTINUING ODYSSEY

This paper describes a 30-year individual transition from traditional lecturing to more interactive undergraduate teaching. The advent of re quired evaluations by students in the late 1970s spurred efforts to be more responsive to students' questions and then to stimulate more que stions and participation by students, and eventually led to giving for mal credit for class participation. Small-group discussions (collabora tive learning groups), simulation games, neighbor talk, and split-clas s debates were added later. Improved learning and use of student names , and the ''muddiest point'' technique, have been added more recently, as have extensive small-group class presentations. In the course on d eviant groups, regular lectures are no longer given. Secret ballot eva luations by students have confirmed the value of these changes, most o f which resulted from conversations with colleagues. Small-group discu ssions and group presentations to the class seem most valuable as gene ral interactive substitutes for lecturing.