Transforming the Learning Process

We are born with a natural curiosity to learn. A teacher or an institution just needs to create an environment and nurture that curiosity. The issue is the way learning is assessed through Q&A based examination which kills the whole curiosity and makes us believe that there is only one right answer and the teacher decides what it is. Obviously teacher and the process of learning becomes boring. All of us have been victims of that to some extent.

Imagine if the teacher introduces Pythagoras theorem and asks the students to come up with scenarios where this can be applied. We don't do that. We spoon feed questions and the answers, which fit into the formula. The challenge is finding the scenarios and the variables and see which formula can help, rather than knowing just using the formula or a concept.

A good teacher helps you figure out an answer. A great teacher challenges you to rephrase the question or even come up with a great question first and then inspires you to find the answer. We are not trained for that process till we reach very advanced stages of education. The entire concept of research methodology must be introduced in teacher training and in school curriculum from the primary level ( in incremental way of course).

Why flipped class model does not work?

I wont read up on a topic if I don't have a question to be answered by doing so. Is the question challenging and real world enough to intrigue me? And it cant be something which is fact based , so that it can be googled up. I need an emotional connect to solve a problem. A teacher needs to create that question in a student's mind before sharing any material. It is also not necessary to have the same question for every student. This will make the entire class discussion a completely exploratory experience for everyone including the teacher.

The moment I find a problem big enough to solve which requires a multi-disciplinary knowledge and skills with multiple tools, including communication and presentation skills, the entire journey of education becomes much more meaningful and progressive. Each year moves me closer to my solution and each year ends in certain amount of excitement and elation driven by a sense of discovery and achievement. Grades are not a measure of achievement but we treat them so unfortunately, there by killing the curiosity and the enthusiasm to learn.

The new way of learning is to use the process of education to solve real world problems. This will also help the students to read up on the research and developments in that field. They will find some natural liking and affinity to some subjects which would define their future areas of specialization during the higher studies, without losing focus on the core problem to be solved. This also brings in the necessity to collaborate with other students from related fields, driving them to hone their behavioral skills as well.

We will be developing each student into a problem solver, specializing in their chosen field and becoming a lifelong learner. I dream of creating such process in my academic journey.