When students are deeply involved in their learning, when they are entranced by their classroom environment or activities, their brains respond in various ways, maintaining a close and developing schema that would not happen otherwise.
We were all born to be lifelong learners. We were born with an insatiable curiosity for everything around us. We were desperate to be able to talk, crawl, and walk. So when you observe a toddler take their first walk, you may see passion-based Learning.
Effective ways to promote passion-based Learning
The use of a student’s passions to help them learn is known as passion-based Learning. Strength-based learning is when a person’s strengths are used to teach them about their deficiencies. For example, if a student struggles with counting but enjoys constructing, a teacher may have them number blocks as they construct. As a result, they will not only enjoy the workout more—and will not wonder, “Why do I have to do this?”—but they will also strengthen their weak points. These approaches make students feel appreciated and transform your class from teacher-centred to student.
Share your own passion with your students.
Passion spreads like wildfire. If you aren’t enthused about Learning, you won’t be able to inspire it in your kids. Take the time to explain why you are enthusiastic about a certain issue.
Let students share their passion.
It is crucial to allow kids to follow their own interests independently, but it is also important to allow them to share their interests with others. The way of sharing something personally rewarding increases your passion for it and inspires you to share it further, especially in the absence of response or condemnation.
Introduce students to the resources that help them exercise their passion
If a student appears to be particularly interested in art, invite her to meet with you after class and provide her with a list of resources – novels, gallery websites, virtual classes, and so on – that she may study in her spare time at home.
Help students find others who share their passion.
It’s one thing to express your enthusiasm with a passing acquaintance, but it’s quite another and far more powerful to express it with someone who shares your passion. It not only validates that your passion is acknowledged, but it also proves that you as a person are cherished. This is a particularly effective strategy in a middle school context, as kids’ desire to fit in might take precedence over academic achievement.
Connect students’ passion with a real-life scenario
Show students footage of engineering projects from colleges and institutions worldwide as they prepare for their class-wide robotics competition. Emphasize the practical importance of devices designed to assist humans, whether in life-threatening medical emergencies or the kitchen at home.
Trust that hard work follows naturally from passion.
Students can easily become sidetracked and carried away by their interests, and it is perfectly acceptable to guide them back to the topic at hand. However, when students are driven to learn, they automatically develop the abilities they need to get the task done.”
Value all passions equally.
When it comes to student passions, avoid allowing any prejudice into the picture. Encourage the kid who presents a fly-fishing guide to class, even if you have a secret crush on the student who pores over Shakespeare during your seventh-grade reading session.
Let students take control.
Students appreciate their education twice as much when they think they have influence over it. Allow pupils 20 minutes to create their own school timetables, complete with gameplay and sports periods if desired, and then see what talents you can find and incorporate into your teaching.
Learn how to recognize passion in momentary obsessions
Some students appear to be interested in everything, jumping from one topic to another from one day to the next. While being interested in anything is preferable to being interested in nothing at all, observe what patterns emerge over time.
Allow for students’ passions to develop and change.
Support your outstanding math student when she chooses to study advanced French rather than compete in the Math Bowl Competition. Express your belief in her worth as a human being, not just a gifted mathematician.
Help connect students to a new subject through an existing passion.
When it comes to student interests, you should take the initiative. This may include speaking with your math student’s art instructor rather than declaring that art has no place in the math room while that kid continues to doodle all period long in algebra. See what you can do to harness your pupils’ specific interests to help them understand your subject.
Show students how learning about seemingly unrelated topics can help them learn more about their passion.
The importance of transdisciplinary Learning cannot be overstated. Showing a student that her passion can be applied to and developed by various disciplines is the greatest approach to help her maintain it. This would reinforce the importance of her passion and demonstrate to her that previously unfamiliar and boring subjects have worth.
Weave standards into passion-based learning.
Incorporating evaluation standards into passion-based Learning is one method to cover all of your obligations as an educator. This strategy needs its own essay, but suffice to state that it is possible.
Understand what passion means for students of different age levels
When it comes to passion-based Learning, younger kids require a different strategy because they cannot be assumed to have the maturity of concentration that older students do.
Understand what passion means for students with different backgrounds.
While some students may have little issue grasping the notion of passion, others may find it unsettling. Recognize that some children may have been encouraged to undertake extensive self-reflection by their parents, while others may have been discouraged from doing so.
Connect passions with intelligence, not talent
When a student develops an exceptional watercolour painting for the yearly art show, it makes him feel smart and skilled. But, on the other hand, these kinds of praises might give the learner the impression that the talent is under his control, that he earned it by hard work and excitement for learning, rather than as a “gift.”
Conclusion
Passion-Based Learning is the practice of enabling Learning by concentrating on and utilizing students’ passions and building passion in students. This implies that teachers may detect their students’ interests and use them to ignite their interest and involvement in the course subject. The main advantage of implementing the Passion-Based Learning model is that it allows students to approach schoolwork by drawing on their interests and abilities through Active Learning.
