Time to redesign classrooms for incredible learning

The root of the word Education is derived from the Latin words Educare, Educere, and Educatum. The Word Educare means to nourish, to bring up, to lead froth and to draw out. But since the practice of imparting education has started, the focus has always been to pour unlimited information into the minds of the students. The traditional education has always been teacher-centric. The teacher was always in the centre of the class with students sitting in the neat rows. The students were not even allowed to talk in most of the scenarios. To make it even worse our traditional education system has invented an examination system where students were required to vomit the information which they have gathered on the sheet of paper. 

As the nature of the work is changing, it is bringing a huge change in the nature of the skills required to work. Therefore, it becomes of utmost importance to match the level of the skills learned at the educational institutes with the skills required at the workplace.

Pravin Bhatia, Director of Education at SAARC Society International says that lecturing does not work in present times. He talks about the power of research-based teaching and peer learning. He talks about the demonstration method wherein students are divided into the groups and each student is supposed to present their part. It contributes to the conscious learning of the students. Also, when students know that they have to give a presentation in front of the class, it also improves their communication, creativity and collaboration. In the same way, many of the educational institutes are also following the philosophy of Genius hour. It is based upon Google’s policy where students get one hour in a week to study and talk about the things, they are passionate instead of being told what to be done every single day.

Educational institutes across the globe are embracing purposeful technology, skill-based and project-based learning.

Higher learning institutes are strongly focussing upon the digital footprints of the students as more than 95 per cent of the employers use digital technologies for recruitment.

In India, the higher learning institutes across the country are trying to redesign their classrooms and make the learning more students centric rather than teacher-centric.

The classes are turning more into discussion rooms where the teacher works as a facilitator. ITS Engineering College at Greater Noida is taking a lot of effort in turning the classrooms as the most effective way of developing 4 C’s of the students which are collaboration, communication, critical thinking & creativity. The college has an incubation centre and a startup cell where students are encouraged to experiment, make mistakes and learn from them. This helps in infusing the entrepreneurship spirit amongst students.

Note: The views expressed in this article are solely author’s own and do not reflect/represent those of Shiksha