Teach Less so that students can learn more

Teach less so that students learn more

Willy A Renandya – 30 Dec 2021

The call for teachers to teach less so that students can learn more is heard more frequently today than it was before.

Such call is justifiable in light of recent advances in the science of human learning. There is plenty evidence to show that students learn best with they are given the opportunity to be more cognitively and socially active during the learning process.

This of course is possible when teachers reduce the amount of direct instruction and give students the time and support to think, explain, explore, extend, elaborate and evaluate their learning in a collaborative environment where they can freely discuss and share their thoughts with their peers.

When students are given more opportunities to be more actively engaged in a lesson, they are more likely to engage in a knowledge-seeking and exploring behaviour. When this happens, the neurons inside their brains start sending electrical signals in rapid bursts, making it possible for students to be fully immersed in the learning process.

Student-centred learning methods such as inquiry based learning, problem based learning, project-based learning are becoming increasingly popular in education.

In these methods, the teacher is no longer the central figure whose job is to use the whole classroom time to dispense or transmit knowledge to their students.

Their main job is to ensure that students get a chance to make full use of their learning capacity to construct, deconstruct and reconstruct knowledge in a socially conducive classroom learning environment.

When teachers teach less, does this mean that teachers now play a less important role? Not at all.

Teachers continue to play a crucial role in education; not as instructors, but as designers of student-centric pedagogy.