[1]
[2]
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 [3] 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:
- The lesson you never got taught in school: How to learn! [4]
- A free MOOC from Coursera: Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects [5].
- Smart Strategies That Help Students Learn How to Learn [6]
- Tips on Learning How to Learn (when you access this SlideShare presentation, you find numerous similar ones in the right hand side bar). [7]
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:
- Smart Strategies That Help Students Learn How to Learn [6]
- Teaching students how to learn [7]
- How to Study and Learn [8]
- Teaching Strategies That Help Students Learn How to Learn [9]
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/ [2]
Related Posts
About Kelly Walsh [14]
Kelly Walsh is Chief Information Officer at The College of Westchester, in White Plains, NY, where he also teaches. In 2009, Walsh founded EmergingEdTech.com. As an education and instructional technology advocate, he frequently delivers presentations on a variety of related topics at schools and conferences across the U.S. Walsh is also an author, and online educator, regularly running Flipped Class Workshops [15] online. His eBook, the Flipped Classroom Workshop-in-a-Book is available here [16]. Kelly also writes, records, and performs original music ... stop by kwalshmusic.com [17] and have a listen!
[Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are my own, or those of other writers, and not those of my employer. - K. Walsh]