Learning is a process that changes depending on needs, environment, and circumstances. Education in today’s world is different from education a few decades ago. The modern world is increasingly interested in flexible people who can work with vast amounts of information and be creative. Current teachers must adapt and change teaching strategies and tactics, concentrating on developing personal characteristics and creative competencies (Pritchard, 2017). In her TED talk, Diana Laufenberg showed how children could be taught at school to understand the educational process and participate in it (Laufenberg). This develops a valuable self-education skill; modern people will have to study all their lives.
The methods used by Diana Laufenberg in the educational process belong to the constructivist theory. According to this theory, the students must independently discover and create knowledge for themselves and not be passive recipients (Fernando & Marikar, 2017). The teacher is no longer an unquestioning carrier of knowledge; each student has access to information and technologies that surpass the knowledge and skills of the educator (Laufenberg). Thus, the actual task of the teacher is to pose problems to students and help in the process of solving them, offering various options and tools. Constructivism allows the teacher to acquire methods of creating knowledge together with the students. Then, the educator helps to evaluate and analyze the successful and unsuccessful parts of the work to ensure a better result next time.
Children and adolescents are not built in the same way; that is why the learning process for some people may be unconventional. Moreover, in their career, every educator encounters irregular situations in the teaching process (Pritchard, 2017). An effective teacher must be able to see students’ characteristics, analyze them, and select appropriate teaching methods. Sometimes it means experimenting until the desired result is achieved because theoretical understanding is not enough. For example, Laufenberg had her students do a project without instructions and then had a collaborative reflection, allowing the students to rate their skills as strong or requiring attention (Laufenberg). The combination of different approaches allowed her to create a creative environment, increase the involvement of students, teach them reflection and introspection, and identify immediate development goals.
References
Fernando, S. Y., & Marikar, F. M. (2017). Constructivist teaching/learning theory and participatory teaching methods.Journal of Curriculum and Teaching, 6(1), 110-122. Web.
Laufenberg, D. (n.d.). How to learn? From mistakes. [Video file]. TED. Web.
Pritchard, A. (2017). Ways of learning: Learning theories for the classroom. 4th Edition. Routledge.