Building attitudes to learning

Attitudes to Learning 

I focus a lot on building and nurturing attitudes to learning. What are the attitudes that enhance and support learning?

These are my favourite attitudes (I am ever in search of better):

• Communication – processing all information and communicating it properly in the solution to any problem. It could also entail defining key terms in a topic.
• Collaboration – learning to work in harmony with peers
• Organization – material and time management.
• Reflection – thinking about the learning, classes and my teaching styles
• Problem solving – well…this is math!
• Information Processing - There are children who can’t process information very fast. It is for them that information has to be broken into pieces, the sub components. The ideas have to be broken down and ordered again. I of the strategies I use is: with a complete attention and focus, with all the clarity in the mind I have, I speak:

Step 1….

Step 2….

Step 3….

No! I am not spoon-feeding. I am transferring my clarity to their minds. And this transference will happen as far as I can be crystal clear. My tone, facial expression, body language and eyes will all participate in unison to transfer this clarity.

That is when the learner would ‘get it’. Fear and incomprehension would return and joy spread over his being. The emotional blocks would open and learning would continue.

It helps if you mark all the steps on the board with a different colour. Help the child to process the information.