• Establish the right “state” – Every good teacher needs to orchestrate an optimum learning environment, and set the right learning mood.
• The right presentation – Every good teacher needs to cover the big picture first, and to cater to all different learning styles and all different types of intelligence. The presentation must always vary between visual, auditory, kinesthetic (movement) and tactile (feeling), and should preferably include music, visuals, dance and movement.
• Encourage new forms of thinking – Including creative thinking, critical thinking, creative problem solving, and activities to store information in long-term memory, and techniques to retrieve it
• Design activities to draw students out – Students learn best by getting themselves physically and emotionally involved. So facilitation’s, games, skits, discussions and plays are vital.
• Apply it – Students must be encouraged to act our they have learned. Encourage all students to be teachers – and to link all new information with existing information (The more you link the more you learn).
• Review, evaluate and celebrate- With praise, celebration, recaps and orchestrated reviews.

We are now well into the “Information Age”. The way we learn and the way we create new ideas has to change. It is simply not good enough to continue to rely on “chalk and talk” techniques developed 100 years ago – our children deserve better.

Tags: creative thinking, discussions and plays, education, Information Age, learning mood., learning styles, Schools for India, schoolsforindia