It’s that time of year again, two-thirds of 2019 has already come and gone. Kids and parents begin to head to major department stores to get all new clothes and supplies. While it is still warm and sunny out for the majority of each day, in less than a month it all will change. The weather will begin to get cooler, the wind will pick up more, the leaves on trees will change from gorgeous greens to rustic yellows, browns, and reds. Shorts, t-shirts, flip-flops, and swimsuits will get packed away, making room for pants, long sleeves, boots, and jackets. Yes, it’s coming, and for some, it is the best time of the year, while others dread it. Why is it exactly that fall is associated with such negative connotations?
Like it or not, fall is quickly approaching, and with its arrival, the new school year is quickly approaching. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), approximately 56.6 million students will be attending school for the academic year of 2019-2020. Those students include grades from kindergarten through senior year of high school. As this school year kicks off, there will be approximately 3.7 million teachers across the United States. That is a substantial amount of individuals who are affected by the coming of fall, which marks the start of the next nine months of learning. How does the approach of August affect students exactly, well for the first eighteen years of one’s life, they associate August with the end of their freedom?
No longer will there be the ability to spend long warm sunny days outside, or to sleep in any day of the week. Friends will not be able to randomly come over or meet somewhere to spend the day together. Instead, it will be dark when the student wakes up, often cold with about 7 hours of their day spent in a classroom. Often times when the school day is over, it is time to go home and work on the assignments that correlate to the topics covered in class. After 7 hours of learning, it’s now time for another couple of hours of homework. Being brain fried is a real thing, and learning at that point becomes highly unproductive. So is hours of homework really the best way to ensure that the student is learning the material?
What is the best and most effective way to ensure students are learning? According to research, if schools really want new materials to stick, the best way to encourage students to study is through what is known as "distributed practice." Meaning, if a student wants to master a new concept, their best bet is to study hard for short periods of time, take a break and then have another go at it. Spreading out intense bursts of learning over a long period of time. While research shows that distributed practice is among the most beneficial ways to practice, it doesn't fit neatly into typical school days. Instead, teachers could work around that to incorporate the strategy into their lessons. According to Kent State's John Dunlosky, who led a team of psychologists to review the evidence for a great variety of learning strategies, many teachers are simply unaware of the benefits of distributed practice and other science-backed techniques.
Do you have different thoughts from Knowpia’s in regards to fall being associated with a negative connotation among students? Fall means school is beginning, which in turn creates the mentality of excessive non-stop learning, studying, and the lack of freedom. With millions of students in school, there are bound to be more effective ways to encourage learning.
