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How to Further Advance Your
Child‘s Learning?
Edition Number: 2
Published By Learnhive Pvt. Ltd.
Date of Publication: 11-11-2013
Copyright © Learnhive, 2013
All rights reserved.
ii
About the Authors
Captain Unni Krishnan is a Founder and Director of
LearnHive; he is also the Founder and Managing Trustee
of Primus Public School, Bangalore. Prior to that he was
the Founder and Trustee of Indus International School. At
Primus, he has been instrumental in implementation of
new teaching pedagogies. He has seamlessly integrated
the International and Indian syllabi to help prepare
students for higher studies both in India and Overseas.
Capt. is a 'Sword of Honor' from the prestigious Officers
Training Academy of the Indian Army.
Shiv Shankar ([email protected]) is the co-founder
and CEO of LearnHive. He cofounded Learnhive committed
to creating a unique knowledge ecosystem which will make
it easy to create, organize, share and obtain learning
materials for K-12 education.
Tajinder Singh Sidhu is a Founder and Director at
Learnhive. He has over 20 years of experience in various
leadership roles designing and managing complex
technology solutions. Prior to Learnhive, he worked for
over 14 years at Goldman Sachs in New York.
iii
He holds a B.Tech degree in Computer Science & Eng.
from IIT, Delhi, and a Master's in Computer Science from
College of William & Mary, Virginia. He has taught students
as part of the NSS scheme in India, and currently is a
volunteer teacher with the Literacy Volunteers of America.
Dr. Vani Vijayaraj is the Founder and Director
of Impressions Dental Clinic, Whitefield, Bangalore. She is
an Endodontist and Cosmetic Surgeon by profession.
Karthik Ramaswamy is currently pursuing a
Bachelor‘s degree in Mechanical Engineering from VIT
University, Vellore. He is a captain at Assailing Falcons,
VITU's debut aero design team. He is a writer at the Brain
Bought blog.
Pallavi Rudraraju is a student of 12th grade (High
school) in Vienna, Virginia. She has a passion for singing
and dancing on top of avid reading and writing - much of
her time is occupied by singing in her school choirs and
dancing Bharatanatyam under the tutelage of her long-
time guru. She hopes to become an author and an English
teacher following graduation from college. Bringing
awareness and joy to people throughout the world,
through writing, is her lifelong goal.
iv
Crystal Maria Andrade is a Content Developer at
Learnhive. Nature, travelling, music, movies and fun
interests her. She has a profound passion for writing. She
believes making the most out of every opportunity. Her
hobbies include collecting quotes, learning new words and
playing crosswords and puzzles. She‘s a fun-lover and is
surrounded by fun-loving people. Spreading happiness is
her mantra.
Jenna Murdoch is a student at Barnard College of
Columbia University in New York City. She is an
instructional technologist who is interested in evolving
learning models.
v
About the Authors .................................................................................... ii
Index ............................................................................................................. v
Preface ...................................................................................................... vii
Chapter 1: Are Children Learning or Studying? .............................. 1
Chapter 2: How involved are you in your kid’s education?......... 7
Chapter 3: 6 ways to get involved in the education of your
Kindergarten child ............................................................ 11
Chapter 4: 5 frequently asked questions about reading answered
.................................................................................................. 18
Chapter 5: Make learning effective – address the misconceptions
.................................................................................................. 23
Chapter 6: 3 ways to help your children learn better and 5 tips to
make home work effective ............................................. 27
Chapter 7: 10 activities to engage with your kids in .................. 32
Chapter 8: 5 Useful Tips for Successful Learning ........................ 36
Chapter 9: Secrets fo Learning!.................................................41
Chapter 10: 10 Ways to Enhance Memory for Children! ............. 49
vi
Chapter 11: Are you giving enough blended learning for your child?
.................................................................................................. 59
Chapter 12: Why should you be using the Internet for your child’s
education? ............................................................................ 65
Chapter 13: How to get the awesome results from parent teacher
meetings? ............................................................................. 71
vii
Technology in education is many a time
misunderstood; it is not a means of replacing a teacher or
reducing their skill on the contrary for effective use of
technology the teacher must be more conversant with the
topic and have the ability to moderate discussions within
the class. Technology must be used in conjunction with
classroom teaching to strengthen understanding of
concepts among students. Learnhive as a platform wishes
to address this need and in addition also aims at being a
reference point for parents by providing information on
areas in education that are important. A series of such
information has been consolidated in this e-book and is
being published for assistance of parents.
By Captain Unni Krishnan
1
Chapter 1:
Are Children Learning or
Studying?
You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can
teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue
the learning process as long as he lives.
By Clay P. Bedford
2
Chapter 1
Are Children
Learning or Studying?
By Captain Unni Krishnan,
Photo Credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1361797
3
Children are most precious to parents and their
future the top most priority for them. It is with the
purpose of helping their child achieve great heights
that parents seek the best possible education for
them. Having been educated in the post-
independence but pre economic autonomy era, I
have experienced a system of education that is
skewed towards marks rather than towards
knowledge. Every opportunity of employment was
governed by ―What degree do you have? What
marks did you get?‖ The questions "What is it that
you know‖? Or ―What is it that you can do‖? had no
relevance. This led to a single point of focus in
education which clearly conveyed that ―marks are
not everything but they are the only thing‖.
Admission to a good college ensures a good
placement and in turn admission to a good college is
based on the marks that you achieve in the Board
Examination or the Entrance Examination.
In this age, when success is measured by
remuneration, getting qualifying marks becomes all
important. What this has done to the education
system is that it has taken away the aspects of
4
learning like application, analysis, creativity and
innovation and got students oriented to just
studying for examination with the sole aim of
getting marks.
This has resulted in a rat race where
education related discussions revolve only on
cut-off marks. The effect of the percentage
phenomenon has been such that it has engulfed
even the education boards resulting in a cut–off
at 100% this year. What next?
Let us ask ourselves, does a 100% mean
the student has mastered that complete subject
and is a pundit at it?
Childhood comes once in a life time and
sadly the pressure of contesting at every step
has taken away the social aspect of growing up
with friends and appreciating others. All that
matters is ‗I‘ ‗me‘ and ‗myself‘. All assessments
create a student represented just by numbers.
5
Sadly, in this whole journey, what we have left
behind is the need for real education. Education was
meant to help a child learn and then apply that learning
to life in different situations that they would come across.
Today, education has got limited to studying for marks
and learning is of no consequence.
As per our philosophy parents and teachers
are potters and are trying to give shape to their
children. There is a Chinese saying ―Give a potter
a seed and you will get a Bonsai‖.
If you give a seed to a Gardner, you can
have a tree that will give you flowers, fruits and
even shade.
The same philosophy applies to business as
well where it is essential to emphasize on
creating a work ecosystem that provides every
individual an opportunity to optimise their
potential, work on their strengths and avoid
areas of weakness; profits are bound to come in.
6
To prepare our children for the new era, let
us try to get their focus on learning to
experiment rather than just study for marks
because this will
help them be creative, innovative and in turn
successful in life.
7
Chapter 2:
How involved are you in your kid’s
education?
Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right
paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in
their own hands.
Anne Frank
8
Chapter 2
How involved are
you in your Kid’s education?
By Tajinder Singh Sidhu,
Photo Credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/495427
9
Do you know which subjects your kid is taking at
school? Do you know which of them your kid loves the
most? Do you know the name of your kid‘s best friend
in school?
School going kids spend 60-70% of their waking
hours, including the weekends and holidays, outside of
their school. Time and again it has been seen, the more
the parents gets involved with their kid‘s education and
school, the better their school results have been. The
parent‘s active involvement helps in emphasizing in the
kid‘s mind, that the home and school are inter-
connected.
There are several ways you can get involved. As
my wife and I go about parenting our 2 kids, who are in
the 10th and 7th class, here are few tips (that we got
from others) that are working for us.
Show consistent interest in what they are doing in
school. We continue to learn a thing or two from our
kids or sometimes have a good laugh, when they come
home excited to tell what happened in school today.
This conveys to them that you value what is happening
in school.
10
Get passionate and learn up about any sport,
activity, hobby that your kid is crazy about, and
participate whole heartedly in it. Yes, it can be an
online/video game too! The enthusiasm and
camaraderie that you will build here will help you have
better conversations around their learning and
education.
Sometimes, have conversations with them on
what they don‘t like about their school education or
what worries them. It will identify issues that you might
be in a position to help and fix. However, be mindful
that there will be some lame excuses here!
And of course, visit their school regularly,
especially when they are participating in any school
activity or sport. That goes a long way in boosting their
confidence.
11
Chapter 3:
Six ways to get involved in the
education of your
Kindergarten child
Get over the idea that only children should spend their
time in study. Be a student so long as you still have
something to learn, and this will mean all your life.
Henry L. Doherty
12
Chapter 3
Six ways to get
involved in the education of your
kindergarten
child
By Dr. Vani Vijayaraj, Endodontist and Cosmetic Surgeon
Photo credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/992545
13
I like to play a very important role in the
education of my four year old child. There is an
old Chinese saying. ―Give a seed to a potter and
you shall have a bonsai". If we depend only on
the school curriculum to enrich our child‘s
knowledge, then we are not entirely nurturing
the child‘s mind, body and spirit. In the early
years, children spend most of their time outside
of school. Parents should provide meaningful
learning activities at home for their children,
prepare, support and enhance what is taught at
school.
When I was teaching my then three year
old about the different professionals, we took her
to a fire station, met with a policeman, a dentist,
a doctor, cab driver, gardener, maid, engineer
etc. She can now relate to all of them and this
provides a stimulating experience.
Here are the six ways you as a parent can get
involved.
14
1. Maintain a daily and weekly family
routine For example, every Sunday evening we
have a family routine. We as a family sit in our
garden on
our respective comfortable chairs along with our
own books and have our coffees, fruits and milk
spending quality time and as we read our books
we even discuss the books. Have a clutter free
desk for your child to study every day.
Set a fixed time each day for study and
homework and do not negotiate. Read to your
child every night, reading aloud is the most
important activity that parents can do to increase
their child's chance of reading successfully.
2. Regularly communicate with the school
Informal discussions with school staff is the most
useful way to find out about children‘s progress
in school. It can help us focus on things that the
child needs help with.
3. Monitor after school activities
15
Make sure your child is always supervised,
arrange for after school activities like group work
on science projects (a group of parents can take
turns to help the children), music, dance, sports,
literary activities etc. These will help in the
development of the child‘s social skills.
4. Plan Field trips
Plan field trips with either with a group of your
child‘s friends or just the family. Field trips give
your children the opportunity to touch, hold, see,
taste and live what they are learning from books.
Plan a trip to the farm, a wild life sanctuary,
planetarium etc.
5. Involve yourself in your child’s project
work
When you help your child with their project, give
a lot of input, help them browse the internet for
the best information, take them to the libraries
and help them present the project in an excellent
manner, which gets appreciated at school and
makes the child want to do more.
16
6. Talk to your children about what they are
learning at school
It is important to ask your child about school, be
it a Kindergartner or a high schooler. Always ask
open-ended questions about their class work —
questions that can‘t be answered with a ―yes‖ or
‗no.‖ Make sure you share any knowledge you
have and if required read the textbooks or
browse the net for more information.
I want to share my experience on how I
got involved with my child's project work. The
month's topic in my daughter‘s school was
seasons. I taught my daughter her seasons, by
not just showing her pictures, but by making a
diorama with her helping out. We used scrub
pads to make the leaves.
Spring: Blooms everywhere with the big yellow sun
and butterflies
Summer: Blooms turning into fruits, with thirsty
birds on a bird bath.
Autumn: Yellow and orange leaves falling, rain and
also a rake.
17
Winter: Snow and snow man. No leaves on the
branches and the sun farthest away.
I created a chart to show all four seasons in one. She
learnt quickly and the teachers told me she did a
wonderful job explaining the seasons in class during Show
and Tell.
18
Chapter 4:
Five frequently asked questions
about reading
answered
No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find
time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen
ignorance.
Atwood H. Townsend
19
Chapter 4
Five frequently
asked questions about reading
answered
By Captain Unni Krishnan,
Photo credit: Preethi Vijayaraj
20
Reading is a dying habit among the current
generation of youth and is a matter of concern. I
thought I would highlight the benefits of reading in a
Q&A approach with the aim to not only influence a few
more people to read but also motivate them to get their
children to start reading.
1. How does reading influence a person?
Reading influences a person‘s speaking and writing
abilities and more importantly has a great bearing on
the personality as a whole because - Reading improves
awareness on varied topics and in any gathering helps
interact on a larger spectrum of issues.
2. What is the ideal age to start reading?
Reading is a habit and the earlier you start the better it
is. The best way is for a mother to regularly start
reading aloud to a little baby and then slowly grow this
to sessions where both read together. As a family if you
can have reading time that would be ideal. It is never
too early nor too late to start reading. Of course it is
easier to start reading when you are young and as you
grow older you need more push.
3. How does reading benefit?
21
Some of the long term benefits are if you are person
who reads, you will never be bored, as a book is a
friend that can always be with you, it builds your self-
esteem because you are considered a resource person
within your group.
Reading is an active mental process and it is said that if
you are mentally active you can stay away from
Alzheimer; well then it is a great incentive.
4. Why should a child take up reading?
Among children reading can be of great help, it helps
improve their vocabulary as they are exposed to so
many new words and its different usage, it improves
their concentration and focus, it improves their memory
and above all improves their visualization - when you
read a book you visualize a scene your way and when
you see a movie you see it depicted as visualized by
someone else.
5. Is there an age by when it is too late to start
reading?
It is never late to start or improve your reading habit
but an important aspect in this regard is to be serious
about. Have a schedule or an allotted time every day
that must be religiously followed for reading if you can
22
have a common time as a family when everyone is
reading then it is the best.
One interesting method suggested is what is
called DEAR – which stands for Drop Everything and
Read. You can follow this at home or office or anywhere
else: set an alarm and whenever the alarm goes off
stop whatever you are doing pick up a book and read.
You can read for 15 minutes, 30 minutes or even
an hour depending on the time you have. You can even
have more than one such slot every day or 2 slots on
holidays and Sundays during vacations and so on. You
can add incentives and penalties to it. The options are
plenty DEAR can be as creative as you want it to be the
aim is to promote reading.
If you have been reading keep doing if not start
now. Wishing all of you happy reading.
23
Chapter 5: Make
learning effective- address
the
misconceptions
The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to
think, than what to think – rather to improve our minds, so
as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the
memory with thoughts of other men.
Bill Beattie
24
Chapter 5
Make learning
effective- address the
misconceptions
By Shiv Shankar,
Did you know that kids have strong
misconceptions? Watching lecture based video lessons
will not help the kids to learn the concepts. This was
explained in a recent article. An example of
misconception is that kids believe that the earth is flat.
When the (video) teacher explains that the earth is
round, the kids imagine that it is like a pancake, round
and flat. So, how do we solve this problem and make
learning more effective?
It is very important to bring out the child's
misconceptions and replace it with the correct concepts.
25
Following the above example, asking the question
whether the earth is like a pancake and explaining that
the earth is like a ball will remove the misconception.
Derek Muller in his Ph.D. thesis explains the best ways
to teach Physics by addressing the common
misconceptions.
It is now time to abolish monologue lecture videos
as a means to teach concepts. A concept can be taught
very effectively if a student is included in the video and
there is a dialogue with a student. The student in the
video should actively ask questions to clarify the
misconceptions. This will help the child who is watching
the video to assume the role of the student in the video
and activate mirror neurons leading to better
learning. Arindam Nag, one of our co-founders has
applied this principle and did an excellent job of
explaining the concept of infinity to his daughter. You
can watch this awesome infinity concept YouTube
video .
I have given some references in the next page if
you are interested in exploring further.
26
References:
1. "Students come to the classroom with
preconceptions about how the world works. If
their initial understanding is not engaged, they
may fail to grasp the new concepts and
information that
are taught, or they may learn them for purposes
of a test but revert to their
preconceptions outside the classroom."- Book:
How people learn?
2. Mental Models of the Earth: A Study of
Conceptual Change in Childhood
3. Expert gently asks whether Khan's Academy
videos promote meaningful learning
4. Designing Effective Multimedia for Physics
Education
5. Mirror Neuron - wiki
6. Learnhive video - Concept of Infinity
27
Chapter 6:
3 ways to help your children
learn better and 5
tips to make homework
effective
Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember,
involve me and I learn.
Benjamin Franklin
28
Chapter 6
3 ways to help
your children
learn better and 5
tips to make
homework
effective By Captain Unni Krishnan,
Photo credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/193524
29
Reinforcing learning in our child is something all
of us are very keen about. By virtue of my few years as
an educationist and as a parent of a growing boy, I
experienced and noted a few interesting ways to help
the process of learning including completing school
homework which I found quite successful and thought
would share.
1. Teach reading of maps
Reading a map is a skill that is of great help and can be
made very interesting. Along with your child, try and
create a small map of the house and your immediate
locality and mark the places the child visits every day.
Create interesting signs to depict information and then
make a legend of the same. You can mark as much
information as possible on the map so that it is used
during discussions at home. Now when you get a real
map the child will find following the map much easy.
2. Discuss recent purchases
In the next step, take up discussions based on things
that are bought and then relate them to their place of
origin. For example if you buy a new mobile phone,
discuss about the country where it was made, the
capital of that
30
country, the language spoken in that country, cities
that you know of in that country and so on. These
discussions are a wealth of information for the child and
will remain with them.
3. Ask requests in writing
Writing is again something which all of us find the new
generation to be reluctant about – to improve this, try
to get them to write a request for what they
want. Instead of shouting/ punishing them, ask them
to write an explanation about why they made the
mistake. An apology letter is also a constructive
punishment.
Tips on making homework effective
Have a regular schedule i.e. fixed time and place for
doing homework.
No TV or radio during home work time.
Try and be with your child during home work time
and preferably read/ catch up with your work - it is a
great motivation for the child.
Try and get your child to teach you what was done
as home work – ‗you learn better when you teach‘.
31
Prioritize difficult homework over easy ones, as the
child wouldn‘t be stressed while doing easy
homework if it gets late.
Appreciation, Attention, Affection and
Acceptance are key factors in developing a learning
culture among children and parents play a key role in
this.
Different children respond differently and even
same child responds differently at different times, I am
sure parents would have successfully tried a number of
methods to help their children, please feel free to share
your tips as it will help others as well.
32
Chapter 7:
10 activities to engage with your
kids in
Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to
suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young
children, before they are aware of their own self-importance,
learn so easily.
Thomas Szasz
33
Chapter 7
10 activities to
engage with your kids in
By Tajinder Singh Sidhu,
Photo credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/299893
34
I want to share how parents can get passionately
involved and engaged in various sports and activities
that their kids enjoy doing. This is a follow-up to my
previous blog on ‗How involved are you in your kid‘s
education‘.
Here are some edutainment activities you can do
with your kids – some we have enjoyed doing at home
with our 2 kids, and there are others that I know, are
avidly done by some of my friends and families. And
often some friendly competition with your kids, in some
of these activities, can spice up the excitement.
1. Picture puzzle boards – you can get various
difficulty levels for various age groups, plus there is
a collective sense of achievement (and sometimes
relief)
2. Treasure hunt – good one to organize inside (or
outside) your home. Sometimes include your
neighbour‘s kids and their house too!
3. Building blocks – works well with kids in the 3-7
years age group.
35
4. Plant an indoor house-plant – for the nature-
inclined kids. A money plant is easy to grow and
maintain.
5. Wash your car or motorbike together on
summer day – Usually anything with water is fun,
and you have a shining car/bike at the end.
6. Bead-work – Girls more inclined towards this and
you can get the Grandma involved too.
7. Go on a bicycle ride with your kid(s) – Make sure
there is enough open space or the side roads are not
busy.
8. Dance at home – find songs that you both like and
the tune is easy to dance with. Exercise and have
fun at the same time.
9. Play tag – never goes out in style with younger
kids.
10. Do you have something that you enjoy doing the
most with your kids? Please post here.
36
Chapter 8:
5 Useful Tips for Successful
Learning
A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and
instill a love of learning.
Brad Henry
37
Chapter 8
5 Useful Tips for
Successful Learning
By Pallavi Rudraraju,
Photo Credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/472030
38
Have you been worried that your kid crams
all night to get good marks in exams? Do you feel
that your child doesn't do well in studies and does
not have the right habits of learning? Here are a
few quick tips for better and faster learning that
will help your child to retrieve better during
examinations.
As a student, months away from receiving a high
school diploma, I feel like I have just the right balance
of youth; yet modern experience in the current
education system to offer you and your child successful
learning tips. It is best to begin walking your child
through these study habits once they begin their
education, but any time is a good time to start with
teaching learning routines for a happy, motivated
student.
1. Select a time period during the day in which
your child will learn and complete homework. Making a
routine schedule is ideal for setting a habit and
maximizing your child's focus.
39
-It might be best to ask your child which time of the
day they‘d like to learn, but also consider the ideal time
for you to be able to help them while determining a set
study period for your child.
-If you have more than one child, try to keep study
times similar, but allow more or less time for each child
depending on individual learning pace or level of
education.
-It is not a good idea to set study time right after school
or right before bed as sleepiness or excitement might
not allow your child to focus to the fullest extent of their
abilities.
2. The length of time your child needs to complete
schoolwork varies from child to child, along with the
level of coursework. So, if your child needs more time,
snacks and breaks then they are helpful to keep your
child happy and focused.
3. Allow your child to work alone on homework, but
help whenever he or she asks for it. Make sure your
child does not become frustrated.
4. Always be patient with your child- if you are
getting frustrated, perhaps, your child simply doesn't
comprehend the way in which you are trying to explain.
40
5. If you find for any reason you are unable to give
your child time or help in certain subjects, look for a
peer or even professional tutor that can simplify the
process for your child.
The key to setting good study habits is to follow
them regularly at scheduled intervals and maintain the
happiness of your child to make sure he or she is
engaged. As each child's course load is different due to
age, level, and understanding; it might take your child
varying amounts of time to finish work. Nevertheless, if
you allow study time to be fun, relaxing, and
stimulating; you can guarantee that your child will
enjoy studying while getting the best results out of it!
41
Chapter 9:
Secrets of Learning!
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use
to change the world.
Nelson Mandela
42
Chapter 9
Secrets of
Learning!
By Crystal Andrade,
Photo credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/717339
43
You may be curious as to know how humans
learn. The ability to create new memories, store
them for a longer period of time and recall them
when they are needed is something marvelous about
human memory. But, how parents and teachers
think about learning taking place in children is
erroneous. Let‘s look at what memory has in store
for us.
Learning is a continuous process which lasts life-
long in humans. It begins right when the baby is in
the womb till we die. There has been lot of research
done as to how learning takes place in humans.
Today, we find parents worrying that their children
do not do well in their studies and some children find
it difficult to grasp concepts and lag behind while
others are fast learners and get bored or impatient
as they learn quite faster than the others and don‘t
fit into their peer groups. Why do you think this
happens? Do we not know that each individual differs
from the other even in terms of learning and
memory?
44
Learning is different for each individual because
we learn in different places and situations. Learning
depends on whether it is formal or informal. People
learn through different ways like touch, auditory,
visual, behavior, attention, rote memorization,
observing, and perceptions and so on. Moreover, we
learn through variety of formats like multimedia,
books, lectures and the like. Our learning is
influenced by our culture, family, social status,
genetic traits, developmental ability and age. Thus,
learning is unique to each individual. Furthermore,
one needs to know that learning and memory are
interdependent. Learning takes place because of
memory and without memory you cannot learn.
Misconceptions about learning
The fact that everybody needs to know about how
learning takes place is crucial in determining better
results and how to overcome some common
prejudices. Learning is not as simple as we think and
it is much more than cramming. Teachers and
parents make their students and children follow
stringent studying habits without understanding the
45
aspect of how learning takes place in children or
humans in general. Learning is the result of memory
and the process of learning depends on how the
information in processed in the stages of our
memory. The stages that makes memory is due to
encoding, storing and retrieval. If we have learnt
something then it is because there is a relative
permanent change which has taken place in our
behavior, mental processors and our perceptions
about the concepts which is solely due to the result
of our experience.
Stages of memory
What everybody needs to know is how the
information is processed in our memory and how
learning occurs in humans. The stages are as
follows:
Stage 1: This is the first stage of memory and the
information which we have perceived or seen is
encoded for a brief period of time i.e. few seconds.
This information must be either transferred
immediately to short-term memory or else it is liable
to be erased or ceased. This stage is called sensory
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information.
Stage 2: The second stage of memory lasts for 20
to 30 seconds. Some selective sensory information
which is stored in our active memory or conscious
mind is called as short-term memory. Most of the
short-term memories are quickly forgotten, to locate
them for future reference, one has to attend to this
information so that this information moves to the
next stage.
Stage 3: The final stage of memory refers to
information which lies deep in our unconscious and
can be retrieved whenever desired. It‘s a stage
where old information is replaced with new and the
information stored here can be retrieved for a
lifetime. It plays a vital role in learning without which
our purpose wouldn‘t be served. This stage is called
long term memory. Information stored here is
permanent.
Memory like music
Memory can be compared to music on your phone. If
you watch a YouTube music video then it would be a
sensory information for your phone. If you download
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a song and if it is in your playlist then it would be
short term memory. Once the new songs are added,
the old ones will be automatically moved from the
playlist. If you keep playing the new songs many
times, they will be on your phone as most played.
Likewise, this is how memory works. The more you
rehearse any information, the more you will be able
to retrieve or recall the information later.
Goodbye to cramming
Now that you know how memory works and how
learning takes place, you can get rid of your traditional
ways of teaching or studying and say goodbye to all
your prejudices about learning. Cramming or rote
learning entire night before the day of exam is not the
right way to study. Doing this will only result in mental
block or forgetting. Every time you sit for studying,
remember that rehearsing the information you have
learnt is very essential for learning to take place. This
indicates that revising helps in recalling the information
accurately.
Only when the information is rehearsed in the
short term memory, it will be transferred to the long
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term memory.
When this happens we know that learning has
taken place. Hence, practice is important so that your
memory knows that this repeated information has a
purpose and will be retrieved whenever you need it. So,
your memory is like a field. The more you sow, the
more you shall reap. Consequently, make your memory
your good friend, as you‘ll need its help for lifelong
whenever needed.
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Chapter 10:
10 Ways to Enhance Memory
for Children!
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
Aristotle
50
Chapter 10
10 Ways to Enhance
Memory for Children!
By Crystal Andrade,
Photo credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1056131
51
You may wonder how you manage to remember
information for a test. Parents often worry how well
their children are learning and whether schools are
meeting educational standards. Parents and teachers
have big dreams that their children and students
should become successful in their life. But, whether
you succeed or not, all depends on this one aspect:
your mind. Your mind matters and what matters
more is your memory. Memory has three stages
which include sensory information (replica of what
you see and hear/ also called encoding), short-term
memory (active/working memory also called
storage) and long-term memory (permanent
memory/retrieval). Learning is the outcome of
memory and learning depends on how well you have
processed the information. As ability to recall
information is needed for students, the information
they learn should be passed on from the short term
memory to long term memory in order to retain
information during exams, tests or whenever
required.
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Here are some tips for learning that will enhance
your ability to recall information and achieve
excellent results:
How much is too much: There‘s a need to
understand the span of attention of students and
their capacity to store information in their working
memory. It is not educationally sound to impose on
the students huge amount of information for long
period of time, this will leave them confused and
clueless. Instead, giving them limited information for
study and helping them to learn with vigour will aid
in retaining the information for a longer period of
time.
1. Adding Emotion: Anything taught with the
element of emotion will be easily retained in our
memory. This means students are likely to recall
information that induces an emotional response.
Teachers can use this tactic in English, History and
Science classes. For example: if the lesson is on
galaxy, the teacher can induce emotions in the
students by showing them videos or pictures of the
galaxy and stars.
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2. Reading, writing and recollecting: Anything which
is read out loudly will enhance your retention than
just reading it. Writing down the important points or
facts will help in retention and will be useful while
studying for exams. Recollecting is the ability to
retain the information after reading and writing. If
you have encoded the information efficiently then
you will be able to retrieve the information.
3. Rehearsal: It is said ‗Practice makes a man
perfect‘, therefore, rehearsing information till you
master any concept is very important. Rehearsal
improves your memory and gets etched onto your
long-term memory. Also, rehearsing the right
information is essential because unlearning the
inaccurate information which is passed on to the
long-term memory will be a challenging task. Hence,
practice over time and ace your exams without
cramming all information in one night.
4. Give meaning: If there is any subject which has
many names, dates and figures; then it is always
better to associate these facts with something.
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Giving meaning to meaningless concepts or
information through ways such as poems,
mnemonics, music and rhythm will improve retention
of this information for future use.
5. Nevertheless, you can use an aid such as
chunking which plays a significant role in enhancing
the short term memory transfer to long term
memory. Chunking numbers, colours or aspects in
groups helps in remembering and learning the
concepts faster.
6. Make connections: It is vital to make connections
or associations between the new information and the
previously learnt information. The higher the number
of associations made, the more chances of retaining
that information easily and this in turn induces your
memory power through which you can retrace the
information easily.
7. Avoid distractions: While studying, choose a quiet
and peaceful environment, comfortable seating
and table, bright light, proper ventilation and
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avoid distracting things around you. Here, distracting
elements include anything that diverts your
attention, for instance: video games, T.V., music
player, phones, and the like. While studying, if
distraction persists then encoding the information
suffers leading to forgetting. Hence, for encoding to
be efficient you shouldn't give ways to distraction
instead concentrate and give maximum attention to
avoid the inability to retrieve information.
8. Get some rest: Take a break between learnings.
You have heard that ‗All work and no play makes
Jack a dull boy‘, so take breaks after few hours of
studying and relax your mind. Not only breaks but
physical exercise and sound sleep strengthens your
ability to retain the information. Sleep is very crucial
to boost your memory. Sleep helps us learn new
information and pass the information to the long-
term memory. However, for most of the problems
including imbalance of mind and body, stress,
preparing for exams- the best prescription commonly
given is get some sleep! So, say goodbye to
cramming all night.
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9. Teach others to help you revise better: Whatever
you have learnt will be useful when you share that
knowledge to another person. So, one of the best
ways to learn is to teach what you've learnt to
another person. This is the reason why teachers
have mastered the concepts they teach because they
have to teach the same lessons and concepts to
many batches in school. Adding to this, if the
concepts are thought using real life stories and
examples or experiments, then the students are
likely to remember them for life because anything
visual stimulates our attention and learning takes
place faster.
10. Questioning enhances learning: Asking questions
like why, how, what helps in learning concepts well
because here the reasoning, thinking and analysis is
involved. Anything which triggers our mental
processors helps in learning the concepts faster and
better. Finding answers to these questions makes
memory work out as all the mental processors are
involved making the memory charged and active.
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Besides, another way to ask question is by taking the
quizzes or tests which will help in reasoning and in a
way enhance your memory power. Here, the end
process will be getting feedback from the tests which
plays a vital role in knowing what is right and what is
wrong. All this collectively heightens your memory
power because your brain is at its maximum
functionality.
These are the 10 ways which will help you learn
efficiently and remember information so that they can
be retrieved whenever in need. If these procedures are
followed anyone can learn anything quickly and retrace
the information efficiently. However, all these
procedures have to be followed in a systematic way and
one shouldn't end up multi-tasking. The reason is
because our brain processes and stores the information
systematically. This is not practiced then certain
glitches can occur in the process of learning which will
lead to forgetting. Now, you know that the old myths of
rote learning don‘t work. These guidelines will help
students as it will help them reason and learn using the
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above methods which will have a great impact on the
way they can retrieve information whenever asked
for. Therefore, retention depends on how well you
make use of these sure-fire ways to become more
effective learner by simply enhancing your memory
power for excellent results. Ultimately, don‘t forget
that remembering is a skill that takes lot of practice
and learning is a life-long process and has to go on
for our existence on earth. So, happy learning as
memory is like a computer, you need to press Ctrl +
S (Save) for all important information, press
Backspace for all irrelevant information and press
Delete for unused/useless information. Now F5
(Refresh) your mind and practice these useful
methods.
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Chapter 11:
Are you giving enough blended
learning for your
child?
Children have to be educated, but they have also to be left
to educate themselves.
Ernest Dimnet
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Chapter 11
Are you giving
enough blended
learning for your
child?
By Jenna Murdoch,
Photo credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1109761
61
Most of the parents feel that in spite of sending their
child to tuition and school, the classroom learning
has not made much of an impact on the child. The
reason could be that the child has not understood
the concepts or that they maybe exceptionally
talented that they are bored of learning the
concepts. This is due to being exposed to only
classroom learning and not practical knowledge. Find
out what blending learning is all about and how it will
have a positive impact on your child's learning.
Within the modern school system, students are
arranged primarily by age rather than by ability. This
originated with the industrial model of schools,
where students were all trained in the same way to
prepare them to take the place of another on the
assembly line and are moved through the school
years in lock step. Of course, we are no longer in the
industrial age – we live in a knowledge economy
where not everyone is expected to be on the same
path, yet still, students are put in classrooms without
full regard to where they stand on the learning
spectrum.
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Pitfalls in levelled classrooms:
In order to adapt to the new economy, many schools
have attempted to address students of differing
abilities by creating leveled classes and introducing
opportunities for more advanced students such as
Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate
programs. Further, teachers have attempted to
design more ―modern‖ curricula that deviate from
the traditional industrial model by using new in-class
methods that encourage collaboration and project-
based learning. However, even within these leveled
classrooms, there is considerable variance in
students‘ level of comfort with coursework -
instructors still have to appeal to the most common
denominator in order to address the largest audience
possible. As a result, students who have trouble
keeping up may give up on understanding the
material while students who are exceptionally
talented in a certain subject may become bored or
even discouraged.
Online education aids practice and preparation:
In many subjects, online education may be a way for
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students who don‘t fit into the common denominator
to complement in-class instruction. Online education
is a particularly effective complement to work in
mathematics, since mathematical reasoning involves
practice and objective problem solving. Students
who are having a hard time keeping up with their
classmates can do online practice problems until
they have a better handle on the material or watch
tutorials that take them step-by-step through the
process of solving certain types of problems.
Learners who are ahead of most of their peers can
use online education as a way to solve more
challenging problems that can give them a leg up in
preparing for future coursework and can even help
get them prepared for the level of mathematical
reasoning that is expected of students applying to
top universities.
Optimizing online learning platform:
Though online instruction can be an excellent
complement for classroom materials, many parents
and students have a hard time deciding what
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features to look for when attempting to choose an
online learning platform. Many online education
providers have extremely limited materials or
demonstrate the same generalized approach that
drives students to online resources in the first place.
In order to maximize the benefits of complementary
online education, parents and students should look
for platforms that have broad content and have
adaptive resources that track a learner‘s progress
and generate additional materials based on the
user‘s demonstrated performance.
Blending in-class and online instruction:
Blending in-class instruction with adaptive online
complementary resources can allow students to
move at their own pace and can empower them in
the classroom.
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Chapter 12:
Why should you be using the
Internet for your
child’s education?
The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most,
but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.
Plato
66
Chapter 12
Why should you
be using the Internet for your
child’s education?
By Karthik Ramaswamy,
Photo credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/2281
67
Every student has a time in life where he feels
academically challenged - I myself was faced with that
dilemma during the time I was applying to different
Universities to pursue my Bachelor's degree in
Mechanical Engineering. There is a certain overflow as
well as a lack of information one finds in today's
education system: It has become more of a business,
and people fail to understand WHY learning and schools
were invented in the first place. The essence of learning
something lies in curiosity - if you are genuinely curious
about a topic, there's no way you can't learn more
about it.
That curiosity is sometimes self-generated, but
most of the time, needs to be inculcated - which is why
learning about something is very different in
comparison to doing well in an exam and scoring
marks.
At the end of the day, both go hand in hand.
Genuine interest fosters a hunger for knowledge, and
later a desire to apply that knowledge - which is where
exams come in - in places where you can test your
understanding skills. And one has to agree; there is no
better place to do that than the Internet.
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I'm pretty sure many kids today are well
acquainted with the net. I was nothing short of shocked
when my 10 year old cousin came up to me and asked
me about things i hadn't even heard of before - which
explains how much these kids really get out of digging
around the internet. When I was in sixth grade, there
was no option really, other than paying attention in
class (or expensive personal tutors who, well, let‘s face
it, really didn't make kids learn the right way) and then
preparing all by yourself for examinations. The only
material you had was government-supplied textbooks
that focused more on an examination point of view
rather than actual learning. The skills needed for
grasping more complicated concepts in science was only
inculcated through active participation in competitive
exams such as Olympiads.
Today, if I want to read about airplanes, I can go
to Wikipedia and learn all about them the very same
day. So much so, that within a month, I can take online
lessons and match my knowledge to a graduate in
aerospace. This vast, vast treasure trove of information
comes with universities realizing that knowledge must
be
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shared extensively - with more involvement from the
student community, the internet continues to be an
invaluable resource to students all over the world. But
things are slightly different at the school level.
Of course, one cannot simply start reading
graduate level subjects out of interest. Moreover, it is
very important that the 'Base' - fundamentals or
'fundas' as they are better known - must be absolutely
concrete. And this can happen only at the school level.
If they aren't strong, the student will have to first build
them later on - which is frankly a waste of time, and no
student likes to go back to what he studied at the
school level once he graduates from school.
Any kid can read a textbook, learn a few lines,
write it in exams and get a good grade. But does that
really help them? Not really. Because when they have
to apply that knowledge, they fall behind people who
use these other resources - and actually learn the
subject. These 'resources' come in many shapes and
sizes, but what is important is that they must be
focused on making the student learn. Make him think,
develop his curiosity and
70
then challenge him with applications of what he learned
- that way, he'll not see it as an obligation, but as a fun
activity that engages him in learning new things.
Textbook knowledge is not at all enough, and most
students find it boring to read the same thing again and
again.
Don‘t limit them as far as their education is
concerned - it's important that they pick up as much as
they want (and need) to along the way.
And with a toll as powerful as the Internet, the
whole world is, quite literally, at their fingertips.
71
Chapter 13:
How to get the awesome results
from parent
teacher meetings?
Don't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in
another time.
Rabindranath Tagore
72
Chapter 13
How to get the
awesome results from parent teacher
meetings?
By Captain Unni Krishnan,
Photo credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/180602
73
The days of ―Acharya Devo Bhava‖ (teachers are
god) probably no more exist, reasons for this may be
many. The dynamics of student teacher and in turn
parent teacher relationship in this era in our country
has a new dimension. To make a positive influence on
the child‘s development, it is essential that interactions
between teacher and parent are productive and
positive. We all understand that both parents and
teachers aim at the student doing well in life but for the
parent the child and probably the siblings or a few
children in the neighborhood are the only benchmark
and many a time the reaction is more emotional. The
teacher has a larger spectrum of children in the class, is
more clinical in observation and hence is able to assess
more dispassionately.
In an exchange of notes, if both are mature and
the aim is to not blame the child but help overcome the
shortcomings, the result will be very positive. Often it
happens that the teacher is critical about the child and
immediately, the parent becomes defensive, as a result
the communication is more of a confrontation and a
fault-finding session commences which does not benefit
any one.
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Parents and teachers in their discussions must
consider themselves to be on the same side that will
help them look at the child from the same angle.
While it is essential to be positive and motivate
children but we must also understand that children have
to realize the fact that excellence comes from hard
work. If parents negotiate top grades and positions then
children will become lazy and shun hard work.
Another important aspect where parents tend to
shield children is punishments (of course now schools
do not award any physical punishment but limit it to
restrictions or notes in student diary), Mistakes are a
part of growing up, and everyone makes mistakes and
gets punished as a correction process. If children are
playing they are bound to have arguments, fall, get
hurt, these are natural. So also, children fight and make
up but it becomes an issue when it comes up for
discussion in parent teacher meetings (many a times it
is the children who fight regularly who turn out to be
the best of friends).
How to conduct a fruitful Parent Teacher meeting?
It would be ideal if both the parent and the teacher
prepare on a positive note. Approach the meeting with
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the intent to listen to the other party rather to put
across concerns on their list. Teachers must make notes
of the concerns expressed by parents. Teachers along
with their concerns must suggest possible remedies.
Parents and teachers must consider each other to be on
equal footing rather than on a talk down approach.
Most importantly Parents must understand the
limitation of the school which functions for a community
of students and is not a one on one solution and hence
cannot cater to individual needs of each child.
*******
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