INCULCATING HANDS-ON LEARNING IN THE CLASSROOM

A dramatic shift is sweeping through our schools. The signs are all around us. Modernization and innovations are not taking the limelight even in the educative process of teaching and learning. This is even evident with our learners today. The students nowadays are known as the 21st Century learners. They are the “modern” students who are entrapped with the perks of technology, social media at total advancement of the society. Sometimes there traits and dispositions are as well directed by the demands and effects of the modern times.

The teaching and learning experience today is keenly attuned to the demands of today’s world. In this kind of classroom set up, students should take on an active participation in the classroom. This can only be achieved if teachers would employ modern modes of teaching like hands-on learning. In this manner, teachers act as facilitators where students are actively engaged in the actual discovery of learning. Hands-on learning is an educational method that directly involves the learner, by actively encouraging them to do something in order to learn about it. In short, it is ‘learning by doing’.

Hands-on learning has many benefits for students. A hands-on learning environment can give students a better feel as they acquire the expected learning or even of skills. Hands-on learning increases retention on targeted objectives for the lesson. Students who practice what they’re learning in a hands-on environment can often retain the concepts and skills as much as opposed to just sitting in a lecture room and listening intently.

Personally, students who are engaged in hands-on learning opt to develop better self-esteem as they are dealing with the procedures of acquiring academic concepts or core skills of the subject. Hands-on learning improves student’s confidence via personal attention. Personal attention can increase a student’s confidence level by providing one-on-one attention to answer questions and provide insights about the aimed lesson for the day. Their level of self-appreciation increases as well as they venture on discovering first hand what they ought to learn.

Hands-on learning also polishes critical thinking skills among students. A goal of hands-on learning is the expectation that students will learn to make the on-the-spot decisions that can affect a desired outcome. Skills are learned in the classroom by making the students take part in the active delivery of learning.

In order for our children to succeed in these modern times and for society to benefit from their potential, it is vital that students learn how to connect what occurs in the classroom with their lives and even the world outside of the classroom.

— oOo— The author is Teacher III at San Vicente Pilot School for Philippine Craftsmen