At Canopy Nepal, we focus on promoting interactive learning to make our students independent learners and foster their well-rounded development. We run various programs to ignite the love of reading, writing, listening and speaking among our participants.
Often, we see children are encouraged to adapt in traditional rote learning techniques where children are likely to memorize the context instead of understanding it. The students study for the grades and not for the long term learning, which is a serious problem. We see this happening in public schools but the private schools are not as good as we tend to think. This trend has affected students from private schools as well. Following the trend, we can safely assume, that the mentality of the society is still in the primitive era. We still judge a student by their obtained marks and not the knowledge and the skills they have.
Every student is different from another, that is why we need to approach every student differently. For this, we need to introduce interactive learning to make the students independent learners. Interactive learning is where students are encouraged to self-study by engaging the students in the lesson through interactive activities. In class, we only use pen and paper as a means to learn but interactive learning can involve computers, videos, speakers and projectors which could tap into the different sensory receptors of the student.
Even though we are aware of the negatives of rote learning, why is it still practiced? There are many reasons why this is happening. One of the reasons is the limited resources and lack of awareness among teachers to be able to add interactive activities in the standard pedagogy for the students. However, interactive lessons do not necessarily have to be more costly. It usually requires a bit of effort and willingness to conduct a different, but a more engaging learning experience.
How can we practice interactive learning techniques? Learning shouldn’t just be limited to one form but must be fused with, aural, verbal, physical, logical, social and solitary learning styles.
We should all try to incorporate interactions between an adult and a child in order to enhance the quality of the learning material for the children. They should be excited to learn something rather than the feeling of being burdened when they come to class every day. Interactive learning could be any activity which involves participation from every child within the classroom. For instance, we could conduct interactive activities beyond the four walls of the classroom where children can learn while having fun. Some of these interactive activities are poem interpretations, video screening, ‘mero daar’(my fear), ‘Why I love my teacher’, board race and many more. All of these interactive activities aid the student in enhancing different skills.
Understanding the importance of learning, we should use it not only for an academic environment but for all learning experience so that together we can prepare today’s students for life.
Written by: Sabanam Thapa
Edited by: Hriya Kafle
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