Three Programs Schools Should Utilise To Enhance Student's Learning Experiences

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It is the aim of schools to develop meaningful and engaging learning experiences for students. Schools attempt to offer consistent high quality learning experiences that produce good outcomes for students. Axcelerate Australia offers programs to training organisations to assist them to maximise student’s learning experiences and produce high level results.

Here are just three programs that can be used to enhance learning experiences

Group Work: Providing Opportunities to Students to Work in Different Social Settings and Structures

Group work facilitates the engagement of students in peer learning and peer support. It encourages positive learning outcomes through collaborative effort. It also teaches the value of teamwork. It is important to implement strong guidelines to maximise the experience of group work.

It is rare in today’s work environment for individuals to solve problems or launch new products and services without the assistance of a team. The concept of collaborative learning encourages open discussion, mutual research and idea generation. Collaborative learning is designed to tap into the possibilities offered by group learning and development. Generally group learning requires small groups of students to work together towards a common learning goal.

Group work is a model that encourages socialisation skills and has been proven to improve academic performance. Working together is a skill that needs to be learned and includes learning democratic values, effective communication, trust, support processes and also conflict resolution.

Reality Based Learning Approaches

Providing students with real purposes and real audiences for their assignments can help to increase their motivation by creating relevance for them. Writing an assignment set by a teacher is a very different learning experience to writing a letter to the editor, a letter of complaint to a service provider or a letter about an injustice to your local politician. Students often complain that some of their learning activities are pointless: “When will I ever use this skill?”

Offering students’ real life learning opportunities gives their work direct relation to real life and immediately increases the relevance and conceived importance of the task. Communicating with real people about real issues will often directly enhance the content and style of the work produced.

The value of reality-based learning is well documented particularly in language and communication studies. It helps make learning meaningful and satisfying. Having real problems to solve, things like how to manage waste from the school or how to address drop-out rates, motivates learners and encourages them to engage in a wide range of thinking processes.

Multimedia Authoring

Mutimedia authoring gives students the opportunity to present their ideas in a unique and authentic way. Students often prefer visual media and multimedia allows for this preference. Many software programs are simple to and fun to use. Engagement with multimedia enables students to become more proficient in their use of technology and it also offers them an opportunity for a deeper learning experience. Multimedia authoring allows students to more creative in their interpretation of their work whether that is a book review, a mathematical problem or the overview of an historical event.