Traditional teaching methods such as memorizing texts and diagrams from books, using flash cards, and so on just don’t bring in the needed learning and life experiences that are necessary for our children to truly succeed in this ever changing fast paced world. Equipping a child with the right mind maps, intuition and skill set to face the challenges of the new world with the advent of its new age technological advances, is the only way to prepare them with what lies ahead.
With that said, here are 8 new learning techniques for the modern pedagogy that bring out the very best out of study sessions and research suggests that these contribute greatly to the development of a child’s creativity, individual talents and overall thought process.
LEGO Improves Learning
One of the most educational toys available also happens to be one of the most inviting for young children! Using LEGO bricks is perfect for building fine motor skills while kids have fun developing their creative minds!
Children learn to work their fingers well while also distinguishing different colours and brick shapes and how each shape fits and combines with another to form a whole new one.
Children love the thrill of building and they can do this for hours, building up strong little muscles in their hands that will help them do other skills, such as learn to write.
Springdays School has a wonderful LEGO lab packed with equipment, a learning space and caring teachers who nurture the minds of our young future leaders.
Virtual Reality (VR) or Embodied Learning
This learning involves self-awareness of the body interacting with a real or simulated world to support the learning process. When learning a new sport, physical movement is an obvious part of the learning process. In embodied learning, the aim is that mind and body work together so that physical feedback and actions reinforce the learning process.
Technology to aid this includes wearable sensors that gather personal physical and biological data, visual systems that track movement, and mobile devices that respond to actions such as tilting and motion. This approach can be applied to the exploration of aspects of physical sciences such as friction, acceleration, and force, or to investigate simulated situations such as the structure of molecules.
For more general learning, the process of physical action provides a way to engage learners in feeling as they learn. Being more aware of how one’s body interacts with the world can also support the development of a mindful approach to learning and well-being.
Springdays utilizes virtual reality in a classroom environment to help students discover, interact and understand how different elements in science, nature and our communities react with each other, while also bringing in the element of fun in such learning.
Multiple Intelligence Teaching
All learners are different. However, most educational presentations and materials are the same for all. This creates a learning problem, by putting a burden on the learner to figure out how to engage with the content. It means that some learners will be bored, others will be lost, and very few are likely to discover paths through the content that result in optimal learning.
Multiple intelligence teaching offers a solution to this problem. It uses data about a learner’s personality and previous as well as current learning to create a personalized path through educational content.
At Springdays School, the teaching staff tries to understand your child’s personality in order to deliver the most efficient teaching methods that work for that particular child.
Incidental Learning
Incidental learning is unplanned or unintentional learning. It may occur while carrying out an activity that is seemingly unrelated to what is learned. Early research on this topic dealt with how people learn in their daily routines at their workplaces.
For many people, mobile devices have been integrated into their daily lives, providing many opportunities for technology-supported incidental learning. Unlike formal education, incidental learning is not led by a teacher, nor does it follow a structured curriculum, or result in formal certification.
However, it may trigger self-reflection and this could be used to encourage learners to reconceive what could otherwise be isolated learning fragments as part of more coherent and longer-term learning journeys.
Springdays School utilizes a LEGO lab this way along with other technologies such as robotics and virtual reality (VR). These tools coupled with practice testing bring out whole new possibilities from students in the long term.
Context-Based Learning
Context enables us to learn from experience, parents with prior knowledge or who have experienced such events could relate to this. By interpreting new information in the context of where and when it occurs and relating it to what we already know, we come to understand its relevance and meaning.
In a classroom or lecture theater, the context is typically confined to a fixed space and limited time. Beyond the classroom, learning can come from an enriched context such as visiting a heritage site or museum, or being immersed in a good book.
We have opportunities to create context, by interacting with our surroundings, holding conversations, making notes, and modifying nearby objects. We can also come to understand context by exploring the world around us, supported by guides and measuring instruments.
It follows that to design effective sites for learning, at schools, museums and websites, requires a deep understanding of how context shapes and is shaped by the process of learning. The amount of time and quality of such learning depends on various real-life situations as well.
Computational Thinking
Studies show that computational thinking is a powerful approach to thinking and problem-solving. It involves breaking large problems down into smaller ones (decomposition), recognizing how these relate to problems that have been solved in the past (pattern recognition), setting aside unimportant details (abstraction), identifying and developing the steps that will be necessary to reach a solution (algorithms) and refining these steps (debugging).
Such computational thinking skills can be valuable in many aspects of life, ranging from writing a recipe to sharing a favorite dish with friends, through planning a holiday or travel expedition, to deploying a scientific team to tackle a difficult challenge like an outbreak of disease.
The aim is to teach children to structure problems so they can be solved. Computational thinking can be taught as part of mathematics, science and art or in other settings. The aim is not just to encourage children to be computer coders, but also to master an art of thinking that will enable them to tackle complex challenges in all aspects of their lives.
This distributed practice can help children, as well as adults, learn a new language, asses and determine solutions to difficult life problems and more!
Understand, Debate & Learn Like Professionals
Students at higher levels can advance their understanding of science and mathematics by debating in ways similar to professional scientists and mathematicians. This type of argumentation exposes students to contrasting ideas, which can deepen their learning.
It makes technical reasoning public, for all to learn while also allowing students to refine ideas with others, so they learn how scientists work together to establish or refute claims.
Teachers can spark meaningful discussion in classrooms by encouraging students to ask open-ended questions, re-state remarks in more scientific language, and develop and use models to construct explanations.
When students argue in scientific ways, they learn how to take turns, listen actively, and respond constructively to others. Professional development can also help teachers learn these strategies and overcome challenges, such as how to share their intellectual expertise with students appropriately.
Stealth Assessment
The automatic data collection that goes on in the background when students work with rich digital environments can be applied to unobtrusive, ‘stealth’ assessment of their learning processes.
Stealth assessment borrows techniques from online role-playing games such as World of Warcraft, in which the system continually collects data about players’ actions, making inferences about their goals and strategies in order to present appropriate new challenges.
This idea of embedding assessment into a simulated learning environment is now being extended to schools, in topics such as science and history, as well as to adult education.
The claim is that stealth assessment can test hard-to-measure aspects of learning such as perseverance, creativity, and strategic thinking. It can also collect information about students’ learning states and processes without asking them to stop and take an examination.
In principle, stealth assessment techniques could provide teachers with continual data on how each learner is progressing.