Today as the world is changing, the way of doing various tasks is also changing. Then why not bring a change in how we teach children, even now, the majority of the teachers are using those plain, old techniques of teaching students in the online teaching classroom. In which teachers are the speakers and students are trying to gain knowledge by listening, note the point of “trying”. But seldom do they learn or understand anything entirely because that’s not how students’ minds work. They don’t learn just by listening, they need to get hands-on experience to grasp basic concepts of aspects. So that, they don’t do rote learning but retain learning, and this can be done by using “Active Learning” strategies. Encouraging your children to participate in different sports activities that your children like as swimming, gymnastics, track and field, martial arts, or dance, can help them develop a lifelong love of physical activity and instill important values like sportsmanship, discipline, and dedication.
Now, to understand what Active Learning is and what its benefits are. Keep reading this article.
Active Learning is the method of learning that includes activities like debate, discussion, creating, thinking, analysing and being creative. All in all active learning methods use the participation of students as a tool to teach them, in this method students are responsible for their learning. Although teachers are there to help and guide them, students are the ones who take most of the initiative to learn and understand topics and concepts through activities.
Today active learning methods are considered more appropriate and suitable for teaching, and the best part is that these methods can be used in both offline and online learning.
Now let’s look at how Active Learning is beneficial for students.
Fun Way Of Learning: What’s better, students participating in educational activities and learning concepts or students dozing off by listening to continuous lectures? The former one, right? Active learning methods ensure and encourage students to learn in a fun way. Activities like making models, word treasure hunts, solving picture puzzles, group discussions etc. make students engage in learning and they don’t get fed up with it.
Boosts Knowledge Retention: Active learning makes the retention of gained knowledge by the students possible. As students are learning through hands-on experience and activities, they understand every concept on a deeper level and remember it for a long time. That is how students develop life-long learning habits, which are useful for them.
Development Of Skills: As this method is majorly based on activities and learning by doing, students get to acquire various new skills. Skills like critical- thinking, problem-solving, creativity and analysis skills etc are developed in the students. This makes them equipped with skills which are genuinely helpful and applicable, rather than gaining bookish knowledge which is of less use to students.
Self-Responsibility of Learning: As we mentioned above, in active learning methods, students are the active participants in the learning process and teachers act as their helpers and guides. This makes students more responsible and accountable for their learning. And when students are responsible for their learning and education, they develop self-regulation and the habit of self-studying.
Immediate Feedback: Feedback to students plays a crucial role in making or marring their educational journey. If a student gets the right feedback, at the right time, then they can improve themselves and their academic growth. In the active learning method, students get immediate feedback on their learning, for example, a student is working on a chemical experiment in the lab, but after putting all the ingredients together, he didn’t get the results. This gave him immediate feedback that he may have done something wrong during any of the steps. Now, he can ask the teacher for help and do it again, improving and achieving the desired result.
Insightful For Teachers: Active learning methods provide insights to the teachers of students’ learning styles and methods. This helps them to improve their teaching and also enables them to help students more appropriately. Like, if a teacher notices that students couldn’t solve an online puzzle because they lack some knowledge. Then the teacher will take a brief lecture on it in online classes and tell students to try it again.
Collaborative Skills: Students learn to work in teams and collaborate with other students to learn and grow. This enables them to develop collaborative skills which will be beneficial for them during their future career opportunities.
