Why Is an Interactive Curriculum Important?
Educators and entrepreneurs at BETT 2015, from MyOn, Flashsticks, Kurzweil Education and others, debate what a 21st century curriculum should offer students.
Why is an interactive curriculum important? Six education company leaders explain how interactive learning builds engagement, competence and access.
Why is an interactive curriculum important, and what does interactive learning add to a lesson? At Bett 2015, six people from education companies answered that question. They used “interactive” broadly: lessons students act on rather than simply receive, classes that get students talking and moving, and digital tools that let teachers adjust work to each learner.
Each speaker worked for an education company at the time, so their answers make the case for the approach rather than weigh it. Read that way, they are a clear statement of what an interactive curriculum is supposed to achieve, which is the right place for a curriculum leader to start.
Meeting students where they are
Lynn Walker, Marketing Manager, MyON, described the goal in terms of access and families. An interactive curriculum aims “to meet students where they are and provide accessible content to them,” engaging “not only themselves but also their parents and their families,” so as “to really cultivate a learning and reading experience.” That, she said, is “imperative for today’s students to become 21st century learners.”
Getting students out of their seats
Veejay Lingiah, CEO, Flashsticks, said “an interactive curriculum is critical now in a teaching environment. It always has been to a certain extent,” but information is now available everywhere. The job has shifted: “We need to be giving children the tools they need to get out there and to find the information they need.” With so many tools available, he said, “we need children out of their seat, we need them actually engaging with other students, whether that’s virtually or in the classroom itself.”
His answer is a useful reminder that interactive does not have to mean a screen. Students working with one another in the room counts as much as anything delivered on a device.
Building on what children already do at home
Ashok Baker, Head of Media, Schools Media, argued from everyday life. Technology is everywhere, he said: “It’s not a gimmick anymore,” and “technology is a part of everyday life now.” Children as young as two and three are handling tablets and learning their gestures and controls before they start school. “So why not adapt that into education, something they’re already learning naturally at home,” he asked, and use it “to help drive their learning.”
Bringing difficult topics to life
Tilly Brooke, Head of Learning and Engagement, NowPressPlay, spoke about how her company approaches lessons. “To make the curriculum interactive is super important,” she said. Topics such as fractions, or the grammar of fronted adverbials and relative clauses, can be dry, “so how do you engage pupils in what they’re learning about?” Her answer is “making it immersive and really bringing it to life for those pupils so that they care about what’s happening to them.”
From memorising content to building competence
Marta Palomares, International Learning Consultant, Edebe, placed interactivity inside a larger shift in what schooling is for. “Education nowadays is not about learning by heart a content,” she said; “it’s all about becoming competent enough and having enough skills to be a full grown citizen in the future.” That rules out passive teaching: “We cannot have passive classes,” which would only give pupils “certain content,” whereas “an interactive curriculum gives them the possibility to really become competent citizens.”
Room for every level
Richard Flower, Director of International Sales, Kurzweil Education, closed on differentiation. “Interactive curriculums are very important because it allows students to study at various levels,” he said. Students “often need various reinforcement tools, so interactivity allows teachers to customize their learning.”
What interactive learning means for curriculum decisions now
The six answers point to four reasons an interactive curriculum matters: it engages students who would otherwise tune out, it asks them to use what they learn rather than repeat it, it can reach into the home, and it gives teachers room to adjust work for students at different levels. Those reasons remain a useful test when schools choose curriculum materials and design lessons.
They also suggest the questions to ask of any program sold as interactive. Is the activity tied to what students are meant to learn, or is it decoration? Does it let teachers adjust the level, as Flower described, and see how students are doing? Does it involve families in a way they can manage? And does it balance screen-based activity with students working with one another, which Lingiah said could happen virtually or in the classroom? That question has grown sharper since 2015 as schools weigh how screens are used, a balance edCircuit has examined in Screen Time in Elementary Schools: Finding Balance. Game-style approaches raise similar choices, covered in How Gamification Is Transforming Classrooms.
The speakers agreed on the core of it: students learn more when they do something with what they are taught. An interactive curriculum, on screen or off, is a way of building that into every lesson rather than leaving it to chance.
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