Children are such curious creatures. When they want to know about
something new, they want to explore it and while exploring they learn.
But, what makes children want to learn? According to research,
it’s the joy of exploration — a hidden force that drives learning, critical
thinking, and reasoning. This ability is curiosity. A great teacher provides
opportunities to children to explore their environment and have access to books
and information. The teacher encourages students to ask open ended questions,
analyse data, connect with people and nature, and seek new learning
experiences.
A teacher can develop curiosity by planning the following
strategies
1) Social Collaboration
Students learn from meaningful experiences. They need to be
engaged in group discussions, interviewing, finding out, analysing data,
relating it with real life situations and reflecting on their learning by
taking action.
2) Foster creativity
It is no surprise that creativity drives passion. Educators can
foster creativity by allowing self-expression and having students pick their
own topics whenever possible. Teachers can have students design their own
rubric for a project, and teachers can approve it beforehand.
3) Allow Play time
Playing is said to stimulate the imagination and curiosity in
children and helps in building problem solving skills. The components of
playing are the same as learning (curiosity, discovery, novelty, risk-taking,
trial and error, games and social learning). So, students need to be engaged in
play.
4) Emotionally Connect
Teachers need to find out what really drives students. A lesson
that taps into something a student cares about will produce more learning
opportunities. According to some research studies, a positive learning environment
that acknowledges emotion, improves problem-solving and creates better learning
outcomes. Learning depends on the mental state of the learner, including how
they feel physically, psychologically, and emotionally.
5) Encourage innovation
Teachers must allow students to approach assignments differently.
Give opportunities for students to innovate and teach them that failure is a
part of success. In the end, it is passion that drives all great things to be
achieved. If passion is forgotten in classrooms, we are losing half the meaning
of learning. As Einstein once said,“Education is what remains after one has
forgotten what one has learned in school.”
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