O.N. Varma Associate Professor, Education Studies Dept 2006 Copyright: This material can be downloaded and freely distributed for use in the classroom by any teacher. It cannot be used for publication in any form or for any commercial purpose Frequently asked questions on teaching and learning

Frequently asked questions: Why should I teach with visual and colours? Why should I engage children in group work? Am I favouring one child at the expense of the other? Will the higher achiever lose if I engage in group work?

MIE-Education Studies Department-ONV 3 What do you want to attain? Understanding Make knowledge meaningful to the child Help the child develop a strategy for his/her own learning Ability to store information Ability to recall

MIE-Education Studies Department-ONV 4 What do visual and colours do? Make learning more interesting… colourful Help children visualize the information that may not be understandable through the oral channel alone. Help children create an association of the idea with a picture. Help children store information that will be easier to retrieve at a later stage through a recall of the visual input.

MIE-Education Studies Department-ONV 5 What research of brain shows? We can more easily recall images Recall of images is facilitated through the use of colours The ability to present information through a number of ways: auditory & visual helps the child to make use of the whole brain.

MIE-Education Studies Department-ONV 6 Do you remember events from your diary or from an image you created of the event days/months/years ago? Remember when someone tells you: I remember I met you last year… at the party…wearing the blue dress! What helps you recall? –An entry in your diary? Certainly not… It is rather the image of you in that dress… talking to the guy! Then you say ‘Oh, I see!” What does that really mean? You now recall that meeting…. through a construction of an image of the event in your mind..!!

MIE-Education Studies Department-ONV 7 Implications for teaching If your aim is to help children store and recall information you must create the situation/context where the child uses all his senses… and ultimately you are helping the child devise a strategy to recall information. Attempt this question: How much (approximately in percentage) would you remember of a lecture after 24 hrs of hearing it? Look at the next slide only after attempting an answer.

MIE-Education Studies Department-ONV 8 Average retention Rate After 24 Hrs Lecture: 5% Reading: 10% Audio Visual: 20% Demonstration: 30% Discussion Group: 50% Practice by Doing: 75% Teach Other- Immediate Use Of Learning 90%

MIE-Education Studies Department-ONV 9 What does that mean? Most people remember only 5% of what they hear in lectures They will recall 20% of what they see 50% of what they discuss 75% of what they perform as practical exercise 90% of what they tell or teach someone else. Does you teaching allow all these to happen?

MIE-Education Studies Department-ONV 10 How should you structure your teaching? Tell students.. They may remember only about 5% after 24hrs Show them a visual support… chances are that they will recall 20% Demonstrate a learning behaviour… model something, they will recall 30% Allow discussion.. Chances are that they will recall 50%.. This is what you do in group work- allow children to discuss with each other, feel comfortable with the subject then tell it to the class. Create a practical activity… whether in writing, or the child draws, constructs something.. Chances are that he will recall 75% Allow the children to teach others what he already knows.. Chances are that they will remember 90% of what they learn.

MIE-Education Studies Department-ONV 11 Further implications Children assimilate information from a variety of senses… this allows them to make best use of their preferred approach.. If you limit yourself to one or two modes of teaching, oral or written only, children who are visual, or like to engage in some activities by themselves will be bored and may not learn. You should try to engage a variety of activities so as to teach to their learning style.. Chances are that each child will like one of the ways and find means to achieve through her/his own preferred learning style

MIE-Education Studies Department-ONV 12 Average achieving will get more opportunity to improve High achieving will develop better techniques to recall information. They will have to place less emphasis on learning by heart…. or to engage in drill that they probably dislike!

MIE-Education Studies Department-ONV 13 Remember One of the best ways to ensure that children are learning is to allow them reconstruct the information by themselves by telling it to someone else…(remember the chart: 90% recall for “Teach other- immediate use of learning” You remember more by teaching someone than by listening to someone…It allows you to reconstruct the information.. gauge your understanding… identify your own understanding of a subject or the lack of it.. Understand what type of effort you must put in to do better.. Why not help children do all this?

MIE-Education Studies Department-ONV 14 Why should we display the work of each child? When the work of the child is displayed: It provides a sense of pride to the child It is an evidence of that each child has achieved something. The child sees a lot of what he is expected to learn from the display without having to open the copybook or book to do it…. something that few low achievers do! Recall becomes easier as the mind registers a lot of these information without the child putting in much effort to do it. It is beneficial to children who lack the motivation to do things on their own… and to the class as a whole Above all it makes the task of the teacher so much more enjoyable.