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Perceiving teachin# as an interactive process Leads to the adoption of teaching styles which draw upon the fund of research and experience with group processes of learning.Like most university professors, I was a university student for many years. Most of my classes were concluded a few minutes before the bell-just in time for the professor to ask: "Are there any questions?" This was the "discussion" part of what was termed the lecture-discussion mode. T o me those few minutes were often the most invigorating part of the entire class. Years later when I made the transition from student to professor, I considered a technique which would expand those N m Diratwru for Teaching and Leumiqg, I , 1980 41 42 Style and Interactive TechniquesInstructors who begin to move to genuinely interactive discussion techniques quickly realize that these techniques oppose the traditional authority posture of the professor. The concern is valid. Group interaction techniques remove (if only temporarily) the professor from his role as primary information-giver and explainer. To adopt interaction strategies, a teacher must make some changes with respect to his psychological position toward both his subject matter and his students. Bolton and Boyer (1971), in describing the many differences between one-way (lecturing, for example) and two-way (interactive techniques) communication processes in the college classroom, note the psychological effect that occurs when a teacher engages in a group discussion activity. In this instance he relinquishes his "psychological bigness" and instead assumes a "psychological smallness." When the teacher is perceived as bigger than any of his students, students hesitate to speak up; they are reluctant to express opinions which might offend the teacher.

The Concept Attainment Strategy is an instructional technique proposed by Jerome Bruner that targets the “big idea” or concept underlining concrete or abstract examples. This strategy focuses on the developing comprehension of words and ideas associated with a concept rather than on its name or what the concept is called. Specifically it develops children's thinking and reasoning as they examine concepts from narrative and expository texts. Students are given the specific steps or structure to scaffold their thinking. Viewing examples compared to nonexamples of a concept enables students to inductively increase their understanding of the many facets of the concept. This allows learners to generalize to other similar examples and to differentiate the concept from other nonsimilar examples before the concept is named. Finally, applications are made to real‐life situations.

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