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Promoting Creativity and Curiosity of Students Through Discovery Zones

19 Aug 2024

Discovery zones to promote students Creativity and Curiosity

Curiosity is the cornerstone of education. Fostering creativity and curiosity helps build a taste for discovery and help students come back for more. As the internet has taken over the world, there are moments when modern education can fall short in sparking the light and embrace curiosity and creativity and within a student.

To direct students towards creative thinking, JAIN Heritage School believes in nurturing the qualities from an early age and implementing discovery learning. This is achieved using various techniques such as DIY projects, inquiry based learning curriculum, out of the box thinking assignments, and more.

Here are some additional ideas you can implement to promote creativity and curiosity in students through discovery learning in discovery zones.

Build a Unique

Discovery Zone- The school can include various activities with stimulants of different nature. This can include building blocks, puzzles, art supplies, science experiments, books, and DIY tools. It encourages open thinking via diverse materials. Ensure to create a discovery zone that accommodates different activities for diverse age groups. Try to incorporate natural elements in this zone such as plants, rocks, water, sand, and more.

Gamify a Lesson

Board and card games have been present for the longest time within schools and classrooms. By simply integrating simplified games within lessons, you can observe great changes in student performance - academically and socially. Follow this principle for easy gamification - Objective > Obstacle > Visual Representation of Progress > Goal - Creative Thinking

For example - We gamify mathematics and logical reasoning with JHS Cube Open, a class activity for neuron, and activity Clubs that involve literature and art.

Journal and Reflection

Journaling has been in practice for decades and can still prove to be competent in fostering creativity within a student. Encourage students to enter their queries and ideas into a journal and request them to reflect upon it via a discussion post class. This will prompt students to think and come up with ideas beyond structured and limiting curriculum. It helps them grow into critical thinkers. This also helps in promoting inquiry based learning experiences.

Student Choice and Collaboration

Students when given a choice for the mode of learning and presentation have been known to perform better than linear education model. Present students with a choice of how to present their assignments and provide feedback on their performance. This method with open ended questions, solutions, and methods encourages students to embrace curiosity and adopt discovery learning. This approach teaches the lesson of collaboration and learning for better growth.

For example - Collaboration is the center of learning at our school. We ensure to help students come together and plan events and performances for various festivals and programs.

Discovery Learning and Problem Solving

Anything that keeps the mind of a student engaged and pushes them towards creative thinking is discovery learning. This can be done in many forms and approaches. One among them is to introduce a problem in story format. Build a narrative, pose a challenge, and discover diverse solutions to the problem.

For example - Our literary club encourages students to read up a material and provide alternative endings and introduce terms that can be aligned with the central storyline.

Evaluation and Adaptation

Young students tend to bored sooner than expected. Ensure to keep rotating the materials used in the class to hold interest. This will help regularly observe the behavior, consequences of change, the materials students most prefer, and support you in building of study material that most suites a group of students.

For example - Our math teachers at school rotate materials with blocks, papers, stickers, charts, and more to help students understand concepts with ease.

Parent or Guardian Involvement

Parents play an important role in ensuring that the student is attentive and interested in the class. By preparing a schedule for all parents to take turn and be present in the class helps teachers diversify lessons and support various requirements of students within the class. This approach additionally helps the teacher get a third person point of view of the class and improve discovery learning to achieve optimal results.

For example - We celebrated Fathers Day and Mothers Day with diverse activities where parents and children collaborated for activities and games.

Our expert teachers at JAIN Heritage School couldn’t agree more that it is challenging to attract the attention of students who belong to the tech savvy generation. As we build an environment that caters to overall development of the student, we share the ideas that works for us and may work wonders for you. Experiment and implement them today to develop essential skills such as problem-solving, adaptability, resilience, and engage them in creative thinking and embrace curiosity with ease.

Join us in implementing discovery learning via project based learning techniques and discover students perform better academically, in sports, and in life.

 
 
 


 
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