¶ Intro
Learning is a doing word and a worksheet just doesn't cut it. Welcome to Neuroeducation, where we're exploring the neuroscience of how to switch on the brain to
¶ The Concept of Learning as a Doing Word
supercharge learning. I'll be sharing with you innovative teaching techniques, effective parenting strategies, and educational advocacy. I'm your host, Angie Dee. Together, let's revolutionize children's learning. Hey everybody, welcome back to Neuroeducation with Angie Dee. Thanks for tuning in. Today we're going to start with a new concept, learning.
Learning is a doing word. So often in education I've seen classroom after classroom of teachers giving a certain amount of content usually by way of a worksheet and then the children answering sheets on this worksheet and then the teachers considering that
¶ Challenges Teachers Face with Curriculum Constraints
the content is done. Now I don't blame some of these teachers because they're under time constraints and they've been given their own directives from curriculum of how much they have to get through. And they've got two weeks to get through this and two weeks to get through that. And they've only got three lessons to get through something. And sometimes they feel like a worksheet is
the easiest way. However, I would argue that learning is a doing word and a worksheet just doesn't cut it because From ages of old we've had the perspective that children can be taught just in their head alone. And unfortunately we got this from a theorist who thought that our mind worked like little gears and then they just went round and around and they would absorb information effortlessly. However, in neuroscience,
we know this is not true. We know that children have to be engaged to fully learn and they need to be doing really to be learning. As I've mentioned in a previous episode, we've got the learning pyramid that shows us children might retain maybe 5% of what they see, 10% of what they see in here, and then it goes up to 50% if they're in a discussion with their peers. 75% if they're
doing something. So what we have, and 90% if they're peer teaching, but what we have is from 5% and 10% to 75%, we can easily say it is improving your learning by double every time you add a hands-on component. What are some easy ways that we can do this in the classroom? or even at home. Whatever you're teaching, whatever it is, ideally you're learning about life
¶ Bringing Real-World Learning into the Classroom
and life is usually out the door and in the real world. So what can we do to bring learning to life? I would say one of the best things to do is getting our children out. And if you're a teacher, we know that there is bucket loads of red tape to take kids on excursions, but there's
¶ The Importance of Excursions in Education
always teachers that have done. similar excursions that you can use from, and I know that's one of the number one complaints of teachers, so much red tape. I would say go to somebody who's done it, use their exact same documents and then reiterate it to make it easier for you. Or ask one of your principals, vice principals, ask other people to help you out because the learning happens
outside. So much learning happens in the real world. And what we can do is try to bring that real world learning into the classroom, into the home, or we can take children out into the real world. Somebody recently said to me, she studied her first seven years of education. So it would be equivalent of primary school here in Queensland, Australia. in another country, over in England. And she said, we got to go on so many excursions. She said, she
was almost 40. And she said, I can remember so vividly when we went to a medieval castle, we learned how they used to iron with an old school iron and we baked the bread and we got to dress up in these costumes. She said, I can remember that so vividly. As a 40 year old, I can remember that real life experience. She's like, when I came to Australia, I moved here and I went and did my entire high school period from
grade eight to grade 12. The problem was that during her entire high school, she said she went on one excursion and it was for her German class. And for that excursion, they had to go and ask the German exchange students to be able to buy a ticket at the train station. They caught a train to Bingley, which would be the equivalent of about an hour. and then they came home. They didn't get off the train station at Beenleigh and go anywhere. They just
caught a train. In, that would be seven years of high school. For me, I feel like that's a travesty. In Montessori education, they call them outings and outings are super important aspect of
¶ Incorporating Outdoor Learning
learning because what are we doing? We're teaching children about life and we want to get them outside, outdoors and into life. So I would say one of our best methods of resourceful teaching to bring learning to life is to get children into the outdoors, into life through excursions, through
¶ Montessori Approach to Real-World Learning
camps if you can. My incredible mentor at Montessori actually took a group of kindergartners, no joke, from America across the border to Mexico. And what they did was fundraise for their entire trip. And these are kindergartners. So we're talking children from four to five, that had to plan their trip, they had to plan their travel, they had to plan how much it was going to cost, and they fundraised all of the money they needed to do an international trip.
I think if kindergartners can figure out how to get to Mexico and fund their trip and go all the way across country, then we can up our game as educators to get children more into the outdoors. Because when it comes down to it, these are the things children are going to remember. These are
the things going to really impact them for the future. And when we're not doing excursions and we're not getting our children outdoors, what we can do is bring as much as we can into the children's world that is real life and hands-on. If the children are doing something on pen and paper, day after day, week after week, we have to be asking themselves, what aspect of this learning can we bring to life? What aspect of this
learning can we make hands-on? And this is where it's fantastic to ask parents, ask the
¶ Community Involvement in Education
community members. Often they want to be engaged and they want to be able to do something, but they're not sure maybe how they can help. In CMK Kindergartens in Australia, they are one of the most renowned kindergartens and usually have incredibly long wait lists. But I feel like not only are they fantastic educators because they bring learning to life, but also parents play an incredible role on bringing the learning into the kindergarten.
So parents are helping building things and bringing different things in to make learning come to life. So, My advice for the best kind of learning is to
¶ Bringing Learning to Life with Practical Examples
make whatever learning we're doing come to life in whatever way you can. If you're learning about a different country, can the children be making food from that country? Can you invite families from that country? Can they share things from that country? Can you get a grandma to come and share stories about that country? Or can they be building something? If they're learning about the environment, can they try to build that environment? Can they go on an excursion to explore that aspect
of the environment? What can we do to make learning come to life? Because after all, learning is a doing word. Thank you for listening to Neuroeducation with Angie Dee. You can do us a massive favor. It really helps the podcast when you leave us a review on Apple podcast or Spotify. Also, please subscribe on our YouTube channel and you have all the links down below for