Summertime with pumpkin pie, eggnog, and spiced hot apple cider will soon be over, and it will be time for students to go back to school. In today’s blog on education, let’s discuss strategies for helping struggling students develop a love of learning in them through alternate means of teaching. However, some students dread going back to that big red schoolhouse to study and learn. Reasons could be varied.
- Distractions and lack of concentration
- Unable to perform well in exams due to inadequate preparation
- Lack of understanding of what the teachers say
- Attention deficit and poor memory
- Peer pressure and anxiety
But none of this means that some students are any less capable than others in their ability to learn. They just need the personalized attention from a mentor who could also be their teacher to empathize with the situation who will analyze the reason and develop an alternative pedagogy. Once this is done, there is a silver lining at the end of the cloud. The result is, that students will excel in their studies and look forward to going to school every day. So what are some of the pointers to inculcating a love of learning? But before we get into the pointers, If you wish to increase your studying speed and learn faster then do read our blog on Faster Learning with Feynman’s Learning Technique.
Conceptualize learning
Many struggling students hate learning because the subjects do not excite them. There is too much theory and the topics sound unexciting. Teachers can make learning engaging, and fun if they integrate theories into relatable activities. A good example is realistic and fun computer simulations that teach photosynthesis. Gardening is an excellent way to reinforce the lessons that computer simulations would teach.
Focus on Skills and not on Earning Good Grades
Traditional learning is still based on rote memorization and book knowledge. Most employers care little if their employees were straight-A students in school. They care if the employees can perform their jobs well. These employees must have a solid understanding of basic and complex concepts. Teachers must make sure that students understand the concepts being taught. An excellent way to do this is to have students complete projects. For example, a student learning music theory can be asked to create a pleasant yet straightforward song and play this for the class.
Alternate Pedagogy – Teach the Way Students Learn
Every student is a budding Einstein. Teachers can nurture their natural love of learning by identifying their natural learning styles. Pedagogy can be modulated to suit the receptive triggers of the students. An American study in 2014 revealed that traditional lecture-based teaching in STEM subjects resulted in a 55% increase in failure. On the other hand, active learning resulted in an improvement of half a letter in grades. On the other hand, if a student has a low grasping capacity, teachers could adopt a slower pace aligned with learning capabilities and tweak the expectations a bit so that the students do not get discouraged or stressed out.
Personalized attention – Empathy and Consciousness
Teachers can give personalized attention to struggling students by being empathetic about their shortcomings and difficulties. Taking on the role of a mentor at times and a coach at other times will help to create bonding between teachers and students. The students will then open up about the difficulties they are facing and teachers can help them navigate through that and also suggest areas of improvement that they will need to work on. The other advantage that personalized coaching offers is the teachers can explain concepts and theories in plain and easy-to-understand language. They can also reinforce this with relatable real-life projects and examples over an extended session.
Making learning fun and personalized is the panacea to manage struggling students effectively and enhance their learning outcomes. Dynamind committs to achieve learning outcomes across the board regardless of learning abilities. Keeping this in mind, the online teaching platform gives multiple options to teachers to connect with students seamlessly, through live classes and personalized coaching for cohorts.
With Dynamind, you can seamlessly help your students learn better by tracking their performance regularly and also share it with their parents with a click of a button. You can also help your students, regardless of their learning capabilities, to appear and clear their entrance exams by giving them multiple ready-to-use question papers absolutely FREE. You can even create your own in a few minutes with the help of Dynamind’s large pool of questions. All you need to do is signup for FREE on Dynamind and start helping your students and inculcate love for learning in them and see them grow successfully in their academics.
So what are you waiting for?
Also Read: Types of Learning Styles Explained