Young people will need to be prepared in terms of knowledge and skills, critical awareness, attitudes, personal and social qualities, and above all the capacity to continue to learn. Our young citizens will have to address these issues. We need to work harder to develop programmes that deal specifically with these challenges.

We need the ability and willingness to understand the natural world. We need to be able to identify questions and draw evidence based conclusions. We need these to be able to understand the changes caused by human activity and to act responsibly as citizens.

There are a lot of teaching methods and depending upon the kind of students, you will have to change your approach and strategy. We cannot say that one is better than the other. Choosing the right teaching methodology is important because that decides the effectiveness of learning in your classroom. As teachers, you have to ensure to choose the right innovative methods of teaching.

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

OUTDOOR LEARNING

There is plenty of research that spending time in the natural environment is good for us but there is little evidence that this is good for the planet as well. We are still a long way short of working out what the motivating factors towards sustainable behaviours might be.

Outdoor education can be classified in three ways:

• about nature including scientific understanding;

• in nature including engaging the emotions through enquiry, experience and emotions;

• for nature fostering a sense of responsibility and citizenship.

Real world learning should be where all the pieces of the jigsaw come together: social, economic and environmental

Where nature, society, culture and ways of living are explored and connected. The new big issues we can investigate in outdoor lessons and field experience are:

What values should outdoor learning promote?

“Empathy towards those who are facing the effects of humanitarian and environmental crises. concern for future generations, and recognition that human prosperity resides in relationships – both with one another and with the natural world”.

(Tom Crompton (2010) – Common Cause: the case for working with our cultural values)

CROSSOVER LEARNING

Learning in informal settings, such as museums , can link educational content with issues that matter to learners in their lives. These connections work in both directions. Learning in schools and colleges can be enriched by experiences from everyday life; informal learning can be deepened by adding questions and knowledge from the classroom. These connected experiences spark further interest and motivation to learn.

An effective method is for a teacher to propose and discuss a question in the classroom, then for learners to explore that question on a museum visit or field trip, collecting photos or notes as evidence, then share their findings back in the class to produce individual or group answers.

These crossover learning experiences exploit the strengths of both environments and provide learners with authentic and engaging opportunities for learning. Since learning occurs over a lifetime, drawing on experiences across multiple settings, the wider opportunity is to support learners in recording, linking, recalling and sharing their diverse learning events.

Project Based Approach

PROBLEM SOLVING

Problem-based learning is becoming increasingly popular in educational institutions as a tool to address the inadequacies of traditional teaching. Since these traditional approaches do not encourage students to question what they have learnt or to associate with previously acquired knowledge (Teo & Wong, 2000), problem-based learning is seen as an innovative measure to encourage students to learn how to learn via real-life problems (Boud & Feletti, 1999).

Steps of Problem Solving Method Here is a five-stage model that most students can easily memorize and put into action and which has direct applications to many areas of the curriculum as well as everyday life: 1. Understand the problem. It's important that students understand the nature of a problem and its related goals. Encourage students to frame a problem in their own words. 2. Describe any barriers. Students need to be aware of any barriers or constraints that may be preventing them from achieving their goal. In short, what is creating the problem? Encouraging students to verbalize these impediments is always an important step. 3. Identify various solutions. After the nature and parameters of a problem are understood, students will need to select one or more appropriate strategies to help resolve the problem. Students need to understand that they have many strategies available to them and that no single strategy will work for all problems. Here are some problem-solving possibilities: Create visual images. Many problem-solvers find it useful to create “mind pictures” of a problem and its potential solutions prior to working on the problem. Mental imaging allows the problem-solvers to map out many dimensions of a problem and“see” it clearly. Guesstimate. Give students opportunities to engage in some trial-and-error approaches to problem-solving. It should be understood, however, that this is not a singular approach to problem-solving but rather an attempt to gather some preliminary data. Create a table. A table is an orderly arrangement of data. When students have opportunities to design and create tables of information, they begin to understand that they can group and organize most data relative to a problem. Use manipulatives. By moving objects around on a table or desk, students can develop patterns and organize elements of a problem into recognizable and visually satisfying components. Work backward. It's frequently helpful for students to take the data presented at the end of a problem and use a series of computations to arrive at the data presented at the beginning of the problem. Look for a pattern. Looking for patterns is an important problem-solving strategy because many problems are similar and fall into predictable patterns. A pattern, by definition, is a regular, systematic repetition and may be numerical, visual, or behavioral. Create a systematic list. Recording information in list form is a process used quite frequently to map out a plan of attack for defining and solving problems. Encourage students to record their ideas in lists to determine regularities, patterns, or similarities between problem elements. 4. Try out a solution. When working through a strategy or combination of strategies, it will be important for students to … Keep accurate and up-to-date records of their thoughts, proceedings, and procedures. Recording the data collected, the predictions made, and the strategies used is an important part of the problem solving process. Try to work through a selected strategy or combination of strategies until it becomes evident that it's not working, it needs to be modified, or it is yielding inappropriate data. As students become more proficient problemsolvers, they should feel comfortable rejecting potential strategies at any time during their quest for solutions. Monitor with great care the steps undertaken as part of a solution. Although it might be a natural tendency for students to “rush” through a strategy to arrive at a quick answer, encourage them to carefully assess and monitor their progress. Feel comfortable putting a problem aside for a period of time and tackling it at a later time. For example, scientists rarely come up with a solution the first time they approach a problem. Students should also feel comfortable letting a problem rest for a while and returning to it later. 5. Evaluate the results. It's vitally important that students have multiple opportunities to assess their own problem-solving skills and the solutions they generate from using those skills. Frequently, students are overly dependent upon teachers to evaluate their performance in the classroom. The process of self-assessment is not easy, however. It involves risk-taking, self-assurance, and a certain level of independence. But it can be effectively promoted by asking students questions such as “How do you feel about your progress so far?” “Are you satisfied with the results you obtained?” and “Why do you believe this is an appropriate response to the problem?”

LEARNING BY DOING

Cooperative learning involves students working together to accomplish shared goals, and it is this sense of interdependence that motivates group members to help and support each other. When students work cooperatively they learn to listen to what others have to say, give and receive help, reconcile differences, and resolve problems democratically.The role the teacher plays in establishing cooperative learning in the classroom is critically important for its success. This involves being aware of how to structure cooperative learning in groups, including their size and composition the type of task set; expectations for student behavior; individual and group responsibilities; and the teacher’s role in monitoring both the process and the outcomes of the group experience.

(Robyn Gillies, UQx: LEARNx Deep Learning through Transformative Pedagogy (2017). University of Queensland, Australia)

FLIPPED CLASSROOM

MULTIMEDIA LEARNING PROCESS

Information and communication technology has made many innovations in the field of teaching and also made a drastic change from the old paradigm of teaching and learning. In the new paradigm of learning, the role of students is more important than teachers. The concepts of paperless and penless classrooms are emerging as an alternative to the old teaching learning method. Nowadays there is democratization of knowledge and the role of the teacher is changing to that of facilitator. We need to have interactive teaching and this changing role of education is inevitable with the introduction of multimedia technology and the spawning of a technologically-savvy generation of youths.

Multimedia, is the combination of various digital media types such as text, images, audio and video, into an integrated multi-sensory interactive application or presentation to convey information to an audience.

We focus on using multimedia technology as an innovative teaching and learning strategy in a problem-based learning environment by giving the students a multimedia project to train them in skills such as creative thinking and problem solving

Creating multimedia projects is both challenging and exciting.

Another advantage of creating multimedia projects in the classroom setting is that when students create multimedia projects, they tend to do this in a group environment. By working in a group, the students would have to learn to work cooperatively and collaboratively, using their group skills and a variety of activities to accomplish the project’s overall objectives.

MIND MAP

Mind maps were developed in the late 60s by Tony Buzan as a way of helping students make notes that used only key words and images, but mind map can be used by teachers to explain concepts in an innovative way. They are much quicker to make and much easier to remember and review because of their visual quality. The nonlinear nature of mind maps makes it easy to link and cross-reference different elements of the map. Mind Maps are also very quick to review, as it is easy to refresh information in your mind just by glancing once. Mind Maps can also be effective mnemonics and remembering their shape and structure can provide the cues necessary to remember the information within it. They engage much more of the brain in the process of assimilating and connecting facts than conventional notes.

GAMES BASED LEARNING

Game-based learning is one of the different teaching methods that teachers use to cultivate interest among the students. As the name suggests, it is a teaching method that involves games to teach a particular concept or lesson. With the advancement in technology and the numerous online teaching tools available, it is easy to gamify the classroom and lessons. You can include quizzes, buzzer games, and more to ensure that learning is effective.

INTERACTIVE SESSIONS

Brainstorming sessions, group discussions, debates, peer evaluations, or other activities for students to increase the interaction in your classroom.

STORYTELLING

Stories have a way of penetrating the students’ minds and staying with them for longer durations. No matter what grade you teach, incorporating the storytelling method into teaching will show a marked increase in understanding the concepts better. They will be able to connect with the lessons and relate to it. A complex mathematics problem can be made easy if you build a story around it and as discussed, you can make use of technology and various online teaching tools to animate and visualize your lessons.