Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT)
Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT) is an instructional strategy that puts emphasis on the proper implementation of classroom activities according to the needs of the students through the collection of feedback from pre-class assignments. The approach, in turn, provides teachers with the opportunity to change their teaching methods and to be selective about what they teach depending on the level of students' comprehension and their potential queries, thus maximizing learning outcomes as well as students' involvement.
The main elements of Just-in-Time Teaching are pre-class assessments, real-time feedback, and responsive teaching. Teachers give out tasks or questions for the students to solve before attending a lesson, after which they are evaluated for identifying difficulties or engaging topics. Therefore, the analysis of this information gives the chance for teachers to plan their classes accordingly and thus, the time in the classroom will be spent on solving exactly the points which a student feels confused about, instead of a lecture that is presumed to be suitable for everyone.
JiTT is a method that motivates students to participate through the student-involved learning process ofactively involving them. Students are asked to do some pre-class assignments which they will present as specific questions and topics during class. This strategy fosters a more interactive and dynamic classroom environment. For example, if the students show that they do not understand a specific subject, the teacher can concentrate longer on this question during the lesson and thus the class will be more appropriate and interesting for the pupils.
The benefits of JiTT implementation in higher education are manifold, one of which is that it fosters deeper comprehension, along with broader participation and better memorization of the contents. The JiTT by providing teachers with information about the students' knowledge and their misconceptions, they are made to realize how class time can be better utilized. For instance, the biology teacher could find out that a large portion of the class has difficulty understanding a particular topic, so they would be able to adopt the lesson plan to their needs thereby increasing the total of knowledge they have on the subject.
Teachers are sometimes met with difficulties like a short time to prepare pre-class assessments and a fact of low student participation. Along with this, making sense of the feedback can be a tough task, especially in cases where the opinions are different or not explicit. To ease such problems, the teachers could first ask the students straight questions and then go for more complicated ones, that way making the pupils aware of their essential input to the learning process.