“The best education happens outside the classroom”- Mark Twain
There was a time when we always wanted to keep mobile phones and other electronic gadgets away from children’s hands. But the Corona crisis has forced us to give them access to our mobile phones and the internet to complete their online learning assignments and projects given by the school. What has happened due to this in these last 2 months is that many students have gone into self-learning mode. They are themselves taking interest in searching for information on any topic and finding answers to assignments. Teachers have been giving me feedback that even those students who otherwise are not very attentive in the class are showing active interest in completing the online assignments. In a way, many of our students have become self-learners due to Corona.
For the first time, students are learning by themselves topics which otherwise would have been taught to them by their teachers in the classrooms. This gives us a new insight into the teaching learning process that happens in the classroom. What if we (teachers) start focusing on making our students self-learners?
Our traditional method of teaching in the classroom is called as the instruction-based method in which the teacher instructs (explains) to students a topic which they have to grasp (understand) on the spot. The assumption is that the students will learn and understand whatever the teacher teaches or instructs. Some smart students with strong basics are certainly acquiring knowledge through this process. But, at the same time, we also know that there are many students who are not able to keep up with the teacher and lag behind. We then categorize them as slow learners. So, our assumption is certainly not a 100% correct assumption.
Suppose we change our assumption towards classroom teaching-learning process as follows: “Our students are smart enough to learn anything by themselves with the right amount of inspiration and guidance from the teacher”. The teacher’s role in the classroom now is to introduce a topic and inspire and guide the students to themselves explore the topic online – at home or in the computer lab.
She can give pointers (suggestions) to the students as to what type of information they have to gather about the topic and maybe she can also ask the students to find out detailed answers to questions related to the topic. Next day, there can be an open discussion about what the students have understood about the topic when they searched for it. The teacher may also clear doubts of the students if they have not understood something. Initially, she may also tell the students about various online sources where the content is available. Later on, as the students get used to finding out information themselves, there will be no need to even tell them where to look for information. In fact, students are smarter than us when it comes to use of technology! The most important thing here is the way the teacher introduces the topic in the class; it must be so very inspiring and curiosity generating that students are desperate to go home and search for information online!
If you ask students to read a topic from their textbook for home-work, chances are that not all will read and come for the next class. But if we ask them to explore and search for information from the internet, many will be interested.
There are many benefits I can see in this approach:
1) As students can explore and acquire information at their own pace, it becomes easy for them to grasp the information as there is no hurry to keep up with the teacher when she’s explaining.
2) If a student finds it difficult to understand a concept or a particular term, they can search for it at the same time and once understood, they can come back to the main topic to explore.
3) As students acquire and grasp knowledge themselves, their confidence in themselves increases, they will now be more motivated to learn new things. Students will now be motivated to learn because of curiosity and not because of compulsion. Learning occurs naturally when it is led by curiosity.
4) Students may be motivated to find out additional information once they have gathered the required knowledge on the topic.
I strongly feel that teachers should try out this approach. Our traditional methods of teaching have created teacher-dependent learners who are not able to do critical thinking and creative problem solving which are so much required to be successful in today’s ever-changing world. We have seen the need of developing such soft skills in our students in my previous article. We have to remind ourselves that true learning should not be just about memorizing facts and reproducing them in the tests. This new approach will ensure that students are self-motivated in their quest for more knowledge. It will create students who are independent, self-directed learners and encourage them to be innovative and pursue their passions, their dreams by themselves because now, they are curious knowledge seekers. One of the requirements to be successful in 21st century is to be agile and have the ability to learn new things continuously. This is the skill that this new approach tries to inculcate in our students.
My next article “The Flipped Classroom” will discuss a strategy to implement this new approach.
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