Creative Learning Methods for Students

We show you learning methods for pupils with which even difficult topics become interesting and are available on-demand in classwork.

Students learn more successfully with creative learning methods

Simply, just learning material by heart is no fun at all and does not help to anchor knowledge in the brain so that it is readily available in the long term. But there is another way:

Take memory athletes, for example. They learn voluntarily because it gives them joy and a sense of achievement. When learning, they use different creative methods to memorize information. They know that abstract information is difficult for the brain to grasp, whereas images are much easier to remember. That is why they link facts with anecdotes, sayings or stories. Because if we pay more attention to thought and link it to (emotional) images, it not only reaches the short-term memory more quickly but is also stored sustainably in the long-term memory. The same technique is used with LNAT tutoring (National Admissions Test for Law), click here to inquire more about LNAT tutoring services.

This can also be transferred to learning methods for schoolchildren and everyday school life: calculating areas is much easier to learn if the teacher explains the whole thing in class using the example of a soccer field. Learning with stories is thus an effective creative learning method for students.

YES! Parents can give their children a lot of suggestions for this without having to slip into the role of teacher, have to deal intensively with the learning topics or constantly sit next to their child. Because that is counterproductive.

We have put together creative learning methods for students that you as parents can use in everyday life or that you can bring with you as a suggestion for the teachers on the next parents’ evening.

Tip 1: Arouse interest and motivation with the media and excursions (learning with all your senses)

Students only learn successfully if they really understand the content. The textbook forms the basis here, but the explanations are not really tangible for most children.

Exciting excursions, films or books on the respective topic quickly illustrate what history, biology, physics & Co. is really about. The learning topics are linked with images and emotions and migrate into long-term memory overnight. Wonderful!

In a study by Law Mind and the children’s magazine ZEIT Leo, around a third of the pupils surveyed stated that they learn best when the school material is packed into stories. Abstract content comes to life in the truest sense of the word.

In the online learning worlds of Law Mind, children in grades 1 to 4 fly through a planetary world in a spaceship and have to eliminate “confusion” by doing schoolwork.

Tips for the home:

Example of history, theme: “Middle Ages”

Imagine together with your child what it really was like in the Middle Ages and how it was z. B. must have looked like in a castle. Look at a suitable film or documentary, visit a museum or drive to a city where you can visit a real castle. The aha effect is pre-programmed and the difficult facts and figures are automatically linked with multi-faceted images. With this creative learning method for students, the knowledge is guaranteed to be available for the next class test.

Example of math, subject: “Pythagorean theorem”

Prof. Werner Blum, mathematics didactics at the University of Kassel, advises teachers and students to explain new topics using a realistic problem and to solve this independently: “How high does the fire ladder reach on the wall? Or how far can I see from a lighthouse?” This can also be easily integrated into everyday life for parents, e.g. B. when baking. The best thing: the students don’t even notice that they are learning – with slightly different methods.

Tip 2: Lego – a great creative learning method for students

In the previous example, we have already mentioned films and examples relevant to everyday life as a method for sustainable learning. But there are other practical props that help to explain difficult and abstract school material, such as mathematics, in a way that students can understand.

A mother from Australia shows on one of the blogs how small children can playfully learn the connection between numbers and quantities with Lego bricks. For example, the child can put two cards with numbers next to each other and determine which of them is larger. The numbers are then copied next to each other using Lego towers – this learning method for future students makes the result quickly clear. There is even a whole book on the subject: “Learning math with Lego bricks”.

But not only Lego can be used well for learning. Here’s how you could work with folding paper on the subject of geometry.

Tip 3: board games like memory = effective learning method

The game is considered the original form of learning. Everyone knows it, the memory. Even as small kids we train our memory with the help of educational games. The motives of the cards may change with age, but the game is and remains memory training.

A well-known game nowadays is ” bite the snake’s head off ” – this is how it works: Two teams compete against each other and stand facing each other in a queue. The two players who stand at the “head” of the queue are given a math problem by the teacher. Whoever comes up with the correct answer first wins and is allowed to join the end of the line again. Unfortunately, his opponent was eliminated. If all players from a team have lost the duel for the math problem and no one is standing in line, that team has lost.

Of course, there is no question whether the students show more fun and motivation with this learning method than in everyday lessons, in which the children gradually have to correctly solve their assigned task on the blackboard. Learning success: Very high and above all with a very high fun factor!

Tip 4: learning walks through the house

The pedagogue Wolfgang Endres recommends the so-called loci technique to memorize difficult, abstract facts: The individual contents of the learning material are distributed on keyword slips in the house and assigned to everyday, known objects. So every fact has its place. The student then paces through the various places in the house and writes his very own creative learning story. Almost on the side, he memorizes difficult facts such as history numbers – an effective and creative learning method for students, which is particularly well suited for learning vocabulary.

Tip 5: learning by doing

Everyone knows the situation: someone explains a task and we think we understand everything immediately. A week later we try to solve this task on our own and suddenly no longer know what the beginning, the end or the middle way was. But the whole thing is not by chance: We remember things better that we have experienced or done ourselves or have experienced with all our senses.

After explaining the math problem, always let your child do a few math themselves. It’s the same with more practical things: just showing and explaining how to inflate a bicycle or play a piano piece doesn’t really help much – the movement and the self-experience do it. Learning by doing is not just a saying, but a very helpful learning method for students.