Children are such curious creatures. When they want to know about something new, they want to explore it and while exploring they learn.
But, what makes children want to learn? According to research, it’s the joy of exploration — a hidden force that drives learning, critical thinking, and reasoning. This ability is curiosity. A great teacher provides opportunities to children to explore their environment and have access to books and information. The teacher encourages students to ask open-ended questions, analyze data, connect with people and nature, and seek new learning experiences.
A teacher can develop curiosity by planning the following strategies.
1) Social Collaboration
Students learn from meaningful experiences. They need to be engaged in group discussions, interviewing, finding out, analyzing data, relating it to real life situations and reflecting on their learning by taking action.
2) Foster creativity
It is no surprise that creativity drives passion. Educators can foster creativity by allowing self-expression and having students pick their own topics whenever possible. Teachers can have students design their own rubric for a project, and teachers can approve it beforehand.
3) Allow Playtime
Playing is said to stimulate the imagination and curiosity in children and helps in building problem-solving skills. The components of playing are the same as learning (curiosity, discovery, novelty, risk-taking, trial and error, games and social learning). So, students need to be engaged in play.
4) Emotionally Connect
Teachers need to find out what really drives students. A lesson that taps into something a student cares about will produce more learning opportunities. According to some research studies, a positive learning environment that acknowledges emotion improves problem-solving and creates better learning outcomes. Learning depends on the mental state of the learner, including how they feel physically, psychologically, and emotionally.
5) Encourage innovation
Teachers must allow students to approach assignments differently. Give opportunities for students to innovate and teach them that failure is a part of success. In the end, it is a passion that drives all great things to be achieved. If passion is forgotten in classrooms, we are losing half the meaning of learning. As Einstein once said,“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.”