A Taxonomy of Interactivity

Many conversations around interactivity in formal learning programs rests on the tools. Does WebEx allow polling? Can you have threaded conversations in Second Life? What if you gave keypads to members of an audience? And those are all good questions.

But at the same time, we need to nurture cultures around interactivity that are independent of any technology. We need vocabulary and expectations around interactivity itself.

Here's a suggestion, hopefully useful in practice if not in theory:

Level 0: The instructor speaks regardless of audience. This is the proverbial talking head, often supplemented with PowerPoint slides. Most books fall here, and some lectures.

Level 1: The instructor pauses and asks single answer questions of the students. "What year did the Spanish Revolution start?" When the question is correctly answered, the class continues. Many traditional e-learning courses fall here, as well as workbooks.

Level 2: The instructor tests the audience and based on the collective response, skips ahead or backtracks. A good preacher might poll his or her audience ("Amen!?"), and based on the collective enthusiasm ("Amen!!") or lack thereof ("...Amen...") of the response, decide to linger and make a case or assume agreement and move on. This might require preparing three hours of material for a forty-five minute sermon.

Level 3: The instructor asks multiple choice questions of the audience, where a student might have the opportunity to defend different answers, or the instructor asks real time polling questions for data. Or there may be an open-ended student chat rooms in parallel to the presentation, which periodically surfaces an issue that the speaker addresses. Most branching stories fall here.

Level 4: Students engage labs or other activities that have a single, typically process solution, such as putting together an engine. Mini games (Read the surprisingly popular "Engaging Mini-Games Find Niche in Training." T + D, July 2007) are often here. The role of the instructor is starting to be more coach-like.

Level 5: Students engage labs or other activities and create unique content; however, most solutions will fall into fairly common patterns if done enough times. This includes the analysis of case studies, the use of interactive spreadsheets, practiceware, and the playing of most complex games, including real time strategy (RTS) and tycoon games.

Level 6: The students engage in long, open ended activities, such as writing a story or creating and executing a plan, and where the class "ends up" is unpredictable. The instructor is now almost completely an enabler, a coach/facilitator, a resource. This includes the use of blogs and microcosms, and longer (multi-day) role-plays, including the use of virtual experience spaces.

Culture, not Technology

But again, while technology examples are included, all of this can be done in a traditional classroom. So much of Thiagi's work, for example, deals with how to engage an infinitely large audience using little or no technology or even consumables.

Asking students to raise their hand to answer a polling question is one such activity. "How many people agree with...."; "how many students would do a) instead of b) or c)?"; "how many students think the weather is nice today?" I would hope that any synchronous formal learning program (especially face to face) would involve polling at least every 10 minutes. And while this is a theoretically uninteresting point, of the dozen or so classrooms I have sat in on over the last two weeks, none met this simple criterion. The question is why?

Another Thiagi gem is to pair off people and do some short consensus activity, like define something, solve a problem, or form a pro or con opinion. Then after five minutes the instructor can call on someone to present for a minute.

The implication is not that Level 6 should always be used. Most programs will start ideally at Level 1, and then transition to Level 3, 4, 5, or even 6 as quickly as possible.

Mapping to leadership models

The level of interactivity in a formal learning setting maps pretty closely to leadership styles.

Level 1 and Level 2 map to pressure, legitimate authority, and directive. "You will do this and do it now, because I can make you." At best, you can gain student compliance.

By Level 6, the leadership model is collaboration and participation. It is more akin to saying, "I can't do this alone, and need your help. In fact, I trust you to do it, and please let me know how I can help you." This is how you gain student commitment.