How children learn: What parents can do about it
How do children learn? Really, how do they? This question and its answers lie at the heart of how teachers, schools and a whole society decides to teach children. The answers to this question have evolved since the early days of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. New research and findings have vetted out age-old beliefs. In a publication by The International Academy of Education, I was pleased to find a set of conclusions that are easy to understand and implement. These principles resonate with those stated by many recent researchers and practicing teachers. While the publication itself focused on the implications for teaching in the classroom, I think the they apply equally well to how parents can be meaningfully engaged in their child’s education, furthering learning in simple and connected ways.
Of the 12 principles, I want to focus on these 6 as they relate to parents:
Active involvement: Learning requires the active, constructive involvement of the learner
Meaningful activities: People learn best when they participate in activities that are perceived to be useful in real life and are culturally relevant.
Relating new information to prior knowledge: New knowledge is constructed on the basis of what is already understood and believed.
Aiming towards understanding rather than memorization: Learning is better when material is organized around general principles and explanations, rather than when it is based on the memorization of isolated facts and procedures.
Helping students learn to transfer: Learning becomes more meaningful when the lessons are applied to real-life situations.
Creating motivated learners: Learning is critically influenced by learner motivation. Teachers can help students become more motivated learners by their behavior and the statements they make.
Other than the last principle, all the others call attention to the need to make learning real, meaningful, relevant and personal. My mantra for these principles is – Make it real! Keep it simple! Parents can help their children further learning through simple, casual conversations and very everyday situations …
Connect a concept to a real-life example. The teacher is probably already doing this but you can do it as you are out and about in the world, driving, going to stores, making change, dividing a pizza, worrying about an impending hurricane, balancing your checkbook, cooking, trying to get a stain off a shirt. The teacher has a hard time doing this – showing real-life examples. For the most part she can talk about them or share photos/videos. You have the unique opportunity to se them in live action. While it might seem fantastic to head to the science or art museum for every topic learned in school that has a relevant exhibit, resist the urge to do this. You are busy as is. Instead focus on the simpler, more every day life situations – those that make learning, truly real-life, not relegated to the haloed halls of museums and textbooks.
Share stories from your life. If your child is learning history, ask her to pick up the phone and talk to grandpa about WWII, even if grandpa only read and heard news about the war. He was alive then and that itself is a big deal. Set the example of reaching beyond a book and a class lesson to make learning come alive.
Make it a game. If your child struggles with a concept and has done so for a couple of weeks, ask the teacher or get online to find a game to understand the concept or idea. This is especially powerful for subjects like Math that teaches skills and concepts seemingly disconnected from everyday living. Students tend to want to memorize what they don’t understand but if they can ‘play’ with a concept or better yet play to understand, there’s nothing quite like it.
Do a little research with your child. When a child is drawn to memorize because it is hard to understand, ask whether the reasons for why something is the way it is, are not clear to her. Sit down and do some research together. It can be painful to learn the symbols for the elements on the periodic table. Sure, a rhyme can help memorize them anyway but digging a little bit further into the story behind the table can make it come alive in a whole other way. Understanding why it is organized the way it is and how it was created might help your child learn it. The teacher may have covered this in class but clearly a revisit is needed so do that. Who knows, maybe you too will walk away with a new appreciation for something you never quite understood.
Experiment! Good teachers do this all the time but experiments are time and resource intensive so only a fraction of experiment-friendly ideas are learned through experiments. For example, if your child is learning weather and rainfall, collect rain in a bucket you set out for a week, measure it and check whether your results align with the annual predicted rainfall for your city/region. Discuss reasons for why the results align or don’t.
And now for that last principle on motivation. When it comes to motivation, deep and repeated research (read Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn or Po Bronson article Can You Never Tell a Child She is Smart?) shows that not tying your child’s identity to her achievements helps retain intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is what helps people go beyond their greatest potential, persevere and work through challenges, find what they truly love to do. You can foster and grow motivation simply (yes, it is so hard to do, isn’t it?) by not comparing your child to another, attaching rewards to goals or complimenting her by naming her (“You are so good”, “You are a great student”, “You are so smart”). Instead focus your comments on her effort, what you observed and inviting her to reflect on her experience towards an achievement. This approach works well when she achieves and when she underachieves.
Really all this comes down to is talking to your child and realizing that you too can make their learning come alive in the simplest of ways. Teaching and learning is not the hallmark of experts. We all learn all the time! Again then — Make it real! Keep it simple!
If this post moves you to consider a specific learning situation for your child and you have a question, feel free to email me with your question.