Good morning/evening to all the Teachers and Parents all round the globe.

I feel so excited welcoming you to my blog and to class. Today is Monday 11th May, 2020 and I want to share some tips on how teachers and parents could create curiosity to learn in their learners and kids.

Background information

Curiosity they say killed the cat. However, curiosity is the most effect weapon that any teacher and or parent can use to foster learning among the pupils/wards. Owing to this, a teacher or parent ought to understand the efficacy of curiosity and how he can adopt such in stimulating learning in class.

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Years ago, I was posted to a school as a student teacher where I had three months to practice what I’ve been taught in school. It was a wonderful experience filled with fun and challenges which I tried to overcome with the help of my supervisors, intuition and the subject teachers attached to oversee my teaching performance.

Hence, I could tell that one of the unique lessons I learnt from the compulsory Teaching Practice for Students in Faculty of Education back then was how to stimulate learning among the learners. The Head of the School reminded me that such was the main thing that triggers learning. He added that if the pupils's interest is not stimulated and sustained, then learning cannot be said to have taken place.

What is Learning and what triggers Learning

Learning I would define as a change in behaviour brought about by an interaction of the leaner with the environment. Learning is a process of discovering new things, its a process of self discovery. This still boils down to what I said earlier that interest is the key to learning.

Looking at that my layman definition of learning I offered above, it is obvious that there are some variables that ensures learning. These includes:
a. interaction
b. change in behaviour.
c. environment.

Learning cannot take place without these three aforementioned variable. This means that for learning to take place, these three things must and has to be "consciously" taken into consideration.

Now let's consider how these three can be properly used to create as well as foster the maximization of learning outcome among the pupils.

Interaction

There is no learning that takes place in isolation or without the ACTIVE or CONSCIOUS participation of the learners. This I am afraid is where most teachers get it all wrong. To them they feel that learning implies coming to class to teach the pupil about WHAT YOU KNOW about the particular topic. (Read that again).

However this shouldn't be thee case cause learning is meant for the pupils and not the teacher. Thus it should CHILD/LEARNER CENTERED rather than Teacher center. Note that learning should and is not a time for the teacher to display his or her mastery rather should be a time for the teacher to interact with the learners and seek to know what their problem so as to strife to meet their misunderstanding minds.

How Does a Teacher Interact with the Learners?

Have you ever thought about this? The truth is that if a Teacher fails to understand how to interact with his or her learners, I can guarantee that little or no learning can take place. Selah

1. When a teacher interacts with the pupil either by calling their names when asking questions during evaluation or testing of previous knowledge, it makes the learners feel a sense of belonging.

2. A teacher can also interact with the learners by coming down to their level in order to pass the content of the lesson to the learners according to their learning style because each of the learner has his or her learning style. That will be a topic for another day.

3. A teacher can interact with the learners if he makes the leaning appeal to one or all the senses of their learners. This is a bad trend cause teachers (some) want to appeal to the learners auditory sense i.e by listening. All the content of the lesson is passed through talking. This is a very wrong method of teaching that should be condemned. s method in Teaching and this has made a lot of children who would have like Mathematics develop phobia for it and actually fail in the exams.

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Let me for the first time leave you in suspense by ending this piece here. I am consciously doing this to make you have a feel of how curiosity can foster learning. I am sure that if you read this content word for word, you would have a clear picture that I have not exhausted what I wanted discuss.

I will be more than happy to read your comments and respond to your questions ASAP.

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Thank you for reading my blog.

I am @voclab

I teach with passion while anticipating the creation of @edu-nigeria hub in the community.