Sunday, February 10, 2008

Field Hands-on Survey

Hi everybody, Stephen here, and I want to here what you have to say.
Please answer the following question.

Do you feel that having hands-on or interactive learning helps you to learn better or not?
Explain why.


Teachers what is your take on interactive learning?

16 comments:

hannahl said...

Of course, I believe that interactive learning is the best learning. I think that interactive learing for the sake of interactive learning is sometimes a problem. I know a friend who has a teacher who does this and it is highly ineffective. If the student propels the interactive learning, than it is absolutely more successful to their learning, becuase they are driving it. As long as it is mainly self-initiated, that is how many others and myself learn best.

kristinah said...

Yes, I definitely feel that hands on learning is very affective in the learning process. I know that when I do interactive things with my homework it makes it more fun and incorperates play and meaning into the assignment for me. It makes the thing I am learning more memorable. I als agree with hannahl in that it must be student driven in order to be successful because if the student does not want to do it then it will not be a thing that helps them learn it will only be a miserable experience that they will never want to do again.

morganw said...

Most definitly. Hands-on learning and/or interactive learning are the best way for me personally to learn. I believe it is like this for alot of people because it is easier to remember and apply what you've learned if you have already done it before.

macm said...

Personally I LOVE hands-on learning. I always remember the labs in Bio, but do I remember the notes? No. Although I do agree with Hannah, the activity has to be relevant! You can't just have some random arts and crafts thing, because nobody wants to do it and it would have been better to take notes. A perfect balance of notes and activities is what is needed.

Ryad said...

I think hands on learning is one of the most effecitve ways of learning. It incorperates play and is easier to remember. Like Hannah said, it is important for the activity to be relevant and interesting to the student otherwise it defeats the purpose of the activity.

LeslieL said...

Yes, I deffinitely think so, as long as the activity doesn't go beyond what I need to learn. In other words, the activity needs to focus on what we need to learn, so that we know that this is an activity that is helping us learn this specific point or points of the matter. Sometimes I feel as though I'll do an activity but then later on question myself, "What was the point of that?"

mattw said...

Not always. HAHA I'm such a rebel.... But ya, hands-on learning is great, but only if you care about the subject in the first place. If you are initially uninterested, then hands-on learning in that field will either confuse you, or make you even more unenthusiastic. You can also get so caught up in the activity that you forget what you should be learning.

Unknown said...

I definitely think so...even if you are not a hands on person, it is always good to do it because then you can actually do it and know that you can do it. Then, the teacher can show you visually what you do if you are confused, or just explain it to you when it is sitting right in front of you. All the types of learning can be incorportated into hands on learning.

Selenam said...

Yes, interactive learning is more fun then just note taking, and there is less of a chance of falling asleep. Also, actually doing something with the information I learn is helps me remember more then if I just think about it when writing notes.

mattw said...

I wanted to ask (I hope you don't mind stephen) if it's right to teach children with very right brained thinking, because as they get a job in the real world, they will be forced point blank to use organized left brained thinking.

stephenf said...

To answer Matt's question, I think there definitely needs to be a balance in the right brain left brain teaching. After all we need a WHOLE new mind right.

jordanh said...

stephen- nice question. I think that interactive learning helps me because when I see a question on a test, I can realte it to something I did physically, which exercised (hopefully) both sides of your brain.

ParkerH said...

I feel that hands on learning is much better for me. I remember these lessons much better, and I get more out of them. I can't necessarily explain exactly why, but it's true for me.

melissaz said...

I do think hands-on learning is important to join together both the material but a way to really, activly think about it and relate it back to something else. I think that hands-on learning actually causes more stimulation and creates more thinking then just sitting in a chair having the information spoon-fed.

Laurenc said...

Yes I think interactive learning helps me learn better because it requires thought and is so much more then just memorizing or writing down words and forgetting them two seconds later. I think interactive learning also helps develop social skills and defiantly helps me come out of my shell.

Caitlin said...

To go along with what everyone else has said, I think that interactive learning is more productive. I prefer interactive learning over notes, because the hands on experiments help me to remember things better since they are used in context. This is definitely better than taking notes, since all you do in notes is write things down, and have to memorize the facts.