Proceedings of The 7th World Conference on Teaching and Education
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Invent and Learn – the Ultimate Technique of Teaching as well as Learning!
Gopal Krishna
ABSTRACT:
The author proposes a new teaching technique – the “Invent and Learn” technique – in this paper which is the ultimate technique of teaching as well as learning because, in this technique, the teacher gives the minimum needed help to make the students invent a particular concept, law, formula or theorem in all academic subjects and also makes them invent as many questions and application problems as possible based on the new concept, law, formula or theorem they learn in combination with all the concepts, laws, formulas or theorems already learnt by them earlier to exercise their thinking faculty very well and also for class discussions of all these questions and application problems. The author proposes that the teacher follows the 3-day rule in which every student is given 3 days of that subject’s class time apart from the time available at home to invent a new concept, law, formula or theorem with the minimum needed help from the teacher and on the 4th day of the class of that subject, the teacher should give his/her answer in the class if any student is unable to invent it on his/her own. The same 3-day rule should also be followed for inventing as many questions and application problems as possible by the students for every new concept, law, formula or theorem they learn in combination with all the concepts, laws, formulas or theorems already learnt by them earlier. This way there will be a very high exercise of thinking faculty by the students which they will enjoy a lot, provided – (i) no grading is done on the class performance to keep the “Invent and Learn” technique purely a fun learning process, and (ii) there should be only 40-minute duration for every period from class 3 to class 5 and only 50-minute duration for every period from class 6 to class 12 followed by a 20-minute break for rest, relaxation, fun/recreation, physical movements and social interactions in which mobile should also be allowed for fun purpose so that after the intense thinking involved in “Invent and Learn” technique in a period, all students have adequate rest and relaxation. Thus, the “Invent and Learn” technique will improve the thinking ability of the students very well apart from developing their self-confidence, questioning spirit, scientific temper and rationality. The author further differentiates between abstract intelligence and concrete intelligence and shows how concrete intelligence is built on the foundation of abstract intelligence and how the “Invent and Learn” technique improves the abstract intelligence and, hence, the concrete intelligence of the students to an optimum level. The author gives the examples of the “Natural Numbers” and the “Whole Numbers” topics as an application of the “Invent and Learn” technique in this paper to show how it can be implemented in classrooms. The author further talks about how inventing ethical principles is highly likely to lead to an actual commitment to following them citing his own example as proof. The author proposes the complete use of the “Invent and Learn” technique from class 3 to class 12 in all primary and high schools and the partial use of this technique in all colleges and universities as much as practically possible all over the world.
keywords: teaching, invent and learn, exercise of thinking faculty, fun, self-confidence, questioning spirit, scientific temper, rationality, abstract intelligence, concrete intelligence, ethics