Encouraging Learning vs. Teaching

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Moving away from traditional teaching and embracing a student-centred approach that facilitates learning is an important shift all about empowering students for lifelong learning.

By fostering a love for learning, nurturing critical thinking, and creating an environment that values curiosity, collaboration, and growth, you equip students with the tools to navigate challenges, adapt, and become self-directed learners throughout their lives.

How can you encourage learning over teaching?

Utilise Active Learning Techniques

Active learning techniques offer a fantastic way to spark student engagement, develop their critical thinking skills, and deepen understanding.

Encourage students to think creatively and collaborate by incorporating discussions, problem-solving activities, hands-on experiments, and interactive EdTech tools into your lessons.

By providing your students with interactive, tangible experiences, you'll help them retain valuable information and important lessons from your teaching.

Encourage a Growth Mindset

Empowering your students to embrace challenges begins by showing them that intelligence and abilities can be developed through effort, consistency, and practice.

By creating a supportive learning environment that encourages risk-taking and views mistakes as learning opportunities, you help students build resilience and adopt a proactive approach to addressing challenges.

This mindset shift transforms setbacks into steppingstones for growth, instilling perseverance and self-belief, propelling them towards success throughout their education journey and beyond.

Personalise Learning

Understanding each student’s unique strengths, interests, and learning styles can help you differentiate instruction and incorporate multiple learning styles into your lessons to meet the diverse needs of your students.

The use of formative assessments plays a key role in this by allowing for personalised feedback and timely adjustments to teaching methods.

This, in turn, helps to motivate students to take ownership of their learning journey and creates a learning experience that truly speaks to each student’s individuality.

Nurture Curiosity and Critical Thinking

Incorporating inquiry-based learning and real-world problem-solving provides your students with opportunities to ask questions, explore independently, and apply their skills in practical situations, engaging their creativity and resourcefulness.

Developing critical thinking skills and evidence-based reasoning equips students with the tools to analyse information critically, make informed decisions, and become confident, independent thinkers.

Support Collaboration and Peer Learning

Support collaboration through group projects and activities that promote active participation and connection.

Creating opportunities for students to share knowledge with their peers not only deepens their own understanding but also creates a supportive learning environment.

Collaborative learning is all about tapping into the collective wisdom of the group, furthering creativity, critical thinking, and a deeper engagement with the subject matter.

This approach also gives students essential communication and collaboration skills that will aid their future careers.

Leverage EdTech

It's not just about gadgets and gizmos; educational technology tools have the power to make learning come alive.

Imagine interactive and immersive experiences that bring complex concepts to life, facilitating a deeper understanding.

With technology, educators can easily assess student progress and encourage collaboration, no matter where learners are located.

Because of this, learning becomes more accessible for everyone.

Promote Metacognitive Skills

By teaching your students strategies for planning, monitoring, and evaluating their own learning, you equip them with valuable tools to navigate their way through education effectively.

Encouraging reflection and self-regulation helps them become more self-aware and adaptable in their learning approaches.

The ultimate aim is to empower students to become independent, lifelong learners who can take control of their education, leverage their strengths, and thrive in a constantly evolving world.

Create a Supportive Learning Environment

Just as with building an environment that encourages a growth mindset, a supportive learning environment is focused on a positive and inclusive classroom culture.

Celebrate the unique perspectives and experiences each student brings to the table and focus on building strong teacher-student relationships based on trust to lay the foundation for open communication and collaboration.

Reeson Education

At Reeson Education, we share the same passion for empowering educators and students.

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Whether you're seeking the next member of your faculty team or embarking on an exciting career move, our experienced team of recruiters are here to guide you.