Home Free Tools & Resources Resources for Teaching Students HOW TO LEARN

Resources for Teaching Students HOW TO LEARN

By
Kelly Walsh
-
13

7170098685_ccb6fe2fb2_z

Why do Schools Rarely Teach Students How to Learn?

Schools are so caught up in teaching fundamentals like reading, writing, and good old “‘rithmatic”, as and knowledge required to pass standardized tests, but how often are they actually teaching students how to learn?

Out of curiosity, I Googled, “schools should teach students how to learn” and was surprised at what I found, or rather, didn't find. There were links to articles about why we should teach entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and a host of skills not commonly incorporated in school curriculum, but almost nothing in the top results that emphasized the importance of teaching students how to learn (an exception was this good article from Katrina Schwartz via Mind/Shift, inspired by the work of Alan November).

Really? Are we so convinced this is a natural outcome of what we do that we don't need to make a point of ensuring that we're doing it?

I asked my 11 year old daughter if she thought she was being taught how to learn and she quickly replied, “they teach us what to learn, not how to learn”.

Fortunately, once I changed up my search to “learning how to learn”, Google provided a few good results. Like these:

That's all I found (that wasn't redundant)) in the top 20 search results. So then I tried the phrase “teaching students how to learn”. It's really something how a slightly different phrase can provide very different results. Here are some more good resources on this subject:

Also, since studying is an important element of learning, here's another resources I cam across that I think is worth including here: Study Tips & Study Skills: How to Study Effectively.

When schools do teach students how to learn, most likely it is individual teachers who chose to do so. Do you have resources, tips, or techniques you like to use to help your students better understand how to effectively go about learning?

Creative Commons Licensed Image Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/7170098685/

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