Your childhood is meant to be exciting, a time for exploration and discovery. Behind every corner, under every rock, a new world: a tall building stretching to touch the clouds, an exotic bug carrying a leaf, a mural splashed with unimaginably vibrant colours. The world we have created is astonishingly breath-taking.

The tragedy is that some education systems would prefer students head home and sit at the kitchen table with noses stuffed in a textbook, combing through piles of worksheets. I’m here to tell you, bin the homework.

Experiential Learning

One of the most prominent trends in global education is the reduction of take-home work.

Some of the highest ranking school systems around the world have taken a stance on homework, asserting that less is more. Finland, South Korea, Japan and the UK are some of the highest ranked education systems in the world per industry professionals. Each has been reducing the amount of notebooks and textbooks packed into students’ backpacks at the end of the day. 

Instead, students are being encouraged to explore their world through hobbies and activities, and to tinker with the nature of things, ask insightful questions, and conduct mini experiments. 

Have you ever watched a child play in a puddle? Whether you’ve realized or not, they are being little scientists, as they slap their rubber boots down at the right angle, they are rewarded with a splash of water shooting into the air. As they drop pebbles into the puddle they stare as the ripples permeate out in concentric circles. This is experiential learning, and it is a great alternative to worksheets.

REPLACE THE PENCIL WITH A STYLUS

I hear you, not every parent, or even every household, is equipped for ad hoc field trips filled with experiential learning every evening. Sometimes, the family can hardly get off the couch. That doesn’t mean learning can’t happen. Yes, as recommended in the previous blog article in our Back-To-School Series: Get On Board, Technology In The Classroom Is In, I am encouraging you to break out the tech!  

There’s a variety of apps that make learning fun for kids. When sat at home, your kids can still be experientially learning by way of the digital resources at their fingertips. Screen time doesn’t have to be wasted time, nor does it have to mean sitting on the couch!

REIMAGINING HOMEWORK

Educational apps are creative and infused with the latest leading educational research. Your devices have access to a myriad of learning apps that work, and you may not even know it. They are entertaining, educational, and keep kids coming back for more! 

Our app, Moi Panda, makes the best of both worlds. It leverages children’s inherent interest in devices, while getting them to put them down and explore their surroundings. It lets kids continue playing with their peers from school, but at home, or, branch out and connect with friends all around the world. The gameplay navigates children through a series of cultural missions exploring their world, learning about other cultures, and learning about themselves.

You could consider it homework, but the kids definitely won’t!

BIN THE HOMEWORK

In case you haven’t heard, homework is on the way out. 

If you are a teacher, remember to send your students home with light backpacks this year, give them time to explore on their own and bring their questions to you the next morning. 

If you are a parent, remember that forcing your child through another hour of homework at the table may be doing more harm than good; instead, pull out a tablet and play a fun learning app together.

This year, Moi Panda is helping reimagine education, and it begins with chucking stacks of homework sheets in the recycling bin.

Brandon Collier, Business Analyst at Moi Panda