Interaction Types

Age Specific

The Interaction Type that seems to be the most age specific to me is the Learner-learner where there is interaction in groups or one-to-one. Group interaction doesn’t work that well for young kids, such as my toddler who engages in parallel play and does not function in a group. It will be another year perhaps before she is developmentally ready to play in a group and interact that way. The teenagers that I work with are ready and willing to engage in group interaction, although they will put up some fight if I assign the groups versus allowing them to pick their own. One on one interaction is a strong interaction I think for any age. My daughter will respond to one on one and so will my teenagers. I think we all respond to it as long as it’s not intimidating.
As for all other interaction types I don’t find them to be age specific necessarily. No matter the age a learner will benefit from interacting with actual course material, receiving feedback and encouragement from an instructor, as well as interacting with the tools of instruction. As for observing, we all do that from a very young age.

Culture Specific

Major cultures that come to mind are the Latino, Asian, and American cultures. There are other cultures that could possibly be considered that are not geographical, such as religious cultures. I think the Learner-learner interaction in groups would appeal to the Latino culture who tend to be more extroverted and social. The Asian culture may not care for this type of interaction as well as the one-on-one interaction. Asians tend to be more reserved and achievement oriented, generally speaking. Interaction by observing may also appeal to this culture. The American culture I think is going to be split on the group work versus the one-on-one interaction. It seems to me that the Americans are going to thrive off interacting with the tools and technologies used to deliver instruction. We like to get our hands on things and work with them.

Gender Specific

Women are more social by nature. They enjoy talking with and working with other people. Any interaction that has them doing that is going to be gender specific to them, such as the Learner-learner. Men are not as social but prefer to interact with materials and learn without all the discussion. Men may enjoy Learner-content and Learner-interface interactions.

Difficult to match to my learners??

The vicarious interaction that has the student interacting by observing is a hard one in my classroom. Most of the time they are given instructions and put to work. They learn as they go in many cases but don't spend enough time observing. They interact with the course material and the tools used to deliver that material and the discoveries come. However, they are more focused on completing the assignment then on any observations made. I would love to be able to incorporate more Learner-learner into my classroom where I am working one-on-one with my students. However, due to large class sizes this is rarely possible. I do try and make up for it by providing feedback and encouragement to the class and of course assisting when needed. Wouldn’t it be great to have a class size of 20 or so kids that you could work with individually as needed and really get to know??

Preconceived Biases

I do have ideas on what is best for my age group and that is the Learner-learner interaction with groups and the Learner-content and Learner-interface where they are interacting with the course material. I don’t use the Learner-environment much and that’s because I don’t place a lot of value in that interaction type given the constraints on classroom time. It’s a difficult interaction for me to monitor because it has to be done outside of the classroom and can be easily made up and I wouldn’t know it. I also don’t do enough Vicarious-interaction in my classroom. I think the students need to be taught how to observe and my classroom would be a great place for that to happen. We do observe plenty of scientific information happening in a lab but actually paying close attention and thinking through the steps of the process is a difficult thing to come by. I really feel that it’s a weakness in my teaching actually. I think I get so caught up with the business of the classroom trying to conduct a lab with a lot of students that I become task oriented and forget to remind the students to slow down and pay close attention to what is happening and why.