Transforming Underachievers as Independent Learners

"You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him discover it within himself". 

Galileo

 Teachers’ Role:

The role of teachers to assist students in becoming independent learners is extremely critical as pupils do not become successful independent learners by themselves. To change students as independent learners, the role of teachers becomes one of leader rather than controller of learning. 

Teacher as facilitator: 

Leaving the traditional ‘chalk and talk’ approach of teaching teachers require to have a greater access to knowledge and skills in order  to respond the students, needs and interests. Most importantly the teachers must sharpen the students’ skills of learning and rather transferring the knowledge to them, enable them to learn how to know the unknown?  

How teachers can facilitate students? 

There are countless ways of facilitating students to encourage independent learning and these vary with every lesson and every student. Following are some of them.

• Provide resource materials to learners
  
• Encouraging group work so that learners can learn from each other
• Sharpen learners’ desire of  learning
• Collaborate with pupils to set shared learning goals
• Integrate (Information Communication Technology) in your lessons
  
• Provide opportunities of self assessment to learners for their learning
• Give feedback on learners’ progress and encourage self and peer editing before the final draft of work.

 I hope you will find this list helpful. Share your reflections ones you practice these in your classrooms.

Practical Strategies for Teachers to Facilitate

 Under Achievers

Teachers often complain that though they plan well before entering the classroom however, some students usually show non serious attitude towards studies and score poor grades in tests. Hence, they start believing that these students could never perform well academically. Whereas according to Davis Rimm and Siegle,

“Children are not born underachiever. Underachievement is the learned behaviour: therefore, it can be unlearned”.

Here I am listing some simple and practicable strategies to motivate such students and allow them to explore their concealed capabilities. 

Boost Confidence: 

• Know your students. Identify their competencies and areas of interest to work upon and strengthen those.
• Involve in classroom discussion. Give them maximum opportunities to ask and respond the questions in the classroom discussions and activities.
• Give descriptive feedback. Give them comments in detail specially for writing tasks in order to praise and to highlight the area of improvement. 
• Move from easy to complex. Initially give easy assessment so they have more chances to pass and develop sense of achievement.

Create Learning Opportunities: 

• Be innovative. Avoid teaching monotonously since it create boredom. Teach via various pedagogies and integrate Information Communication Technology in your lessons.
• Be supportive and kind: Be kind and helpful for your students and let your students trust you to share their fears and interests openly. 
• Be flexible: Slow the teaching pace and repeat or reframe the instructions where necessary.    
      
• Provide additional support in small groups. Make small groups so the individual needs could be fulfilled. Teach the lesson/concept in easy manner and allow them to share their understanding.                                      

These are few simple yet effective strategies. tryout!