Learning Like a Kid
Remember, when we were kids and we had so many ways to learn and play, thereby allowing us to learn even more through play?
As a teacher of elementary-aged students, I was encouraged to utilize a variety of techniques, strategies, and paraphernalia, to help my students learn. For example, when they were learning about the history of Lewis and Clark – we didn’t just read stories. We went outside and looked for wildlife that they would have seen, cook recipes of food they ate, made up our own stories and journals, etc. When it came time to tackle math, we used counting blocks to help us add or to make fractions, we talked about it, did problems together, and worked in small groups, etc. It was fun, it was varied – it was learning.
So why is it different for adults? Or even our high-schoolers and undergraduate students?
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As the owner of a tutoring company, I see some trends when it comes to the students we enroll in our programs. One of those is of the bored/frustrated adult learner. More and more often, I have students who get tired of reading textbooks and writing reports. Yes, there is great value to being able to mentally digest more complex material; however, it doesn’t mean that this is the only way to comprehend information. Furthermore, there is a lot to be said for a person who is not only able to read and comprehend a textbook full of polysyllabic words; but is also able to write a report on it.
If we could allow our education system to bring back more creative tools, lessons, experiments, and learning opportunities back into the classroom – then there would be a greater probability that our older students could become more engaged and excited about what they are learning.
Now that it’s summer, we have the chance to make learning fun again; to make it creative and different. In the upcoming weeks, I will be listing some unique ways to make lessons out of life; these ideas can be used by parents, teachers, big brothers and sisters, etc. Plus, making learning fun doesn’t mean that if you’re 19 or 39 that you can’t enjoy learning. And the upcoming posts will be reflective of that.
Research has also been conducted to reinforce the need for play and varied methods of learning.
Here is the link to an article written by Scientific American, on the topic.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-serious-need-for-play