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What is the love of learning?
We can describe the love of learning as a desire to learn just for learning's sake, without necessarily expecting an award. The love of learning is closely related to curiosity. However, while curiosity is the driving force to pursue information and knowledge, the love of learning is more about the motivation for the deepening of one's knowledge.
The love of learning describes how someone processes new information and skills. People who are motivated by a love of learning develop positive feelings in the process of expanding their existing knowledge or obtaining new skills. These people also directly or indirectly encourage others to learn.
Why is the love of learning important?
The love of learning sounds like a great skill. But why does it matter for our lives? The importance of having love of learning as a personality trait cannot be emphasized enough.
- The love of learning boosts one's brain by keeping it constantly active. Learning new skills functions as a brain exercise and introduces new neural connections and pathways.
- It helps one balance their mental health, which is a key aspect of our health situation.
- Using the brain in new and complex ways is very handy at any phase of one's life, decreasing the possibility of cognitive decline.
- The love of learning includes intrinsically motivated action which is well connected to positive emotions. Hence, it is very productive both for the learner and their environment.
- When someone embraces the love of learning as a trait, it helps that person to develop deep and wide knowledge and spread it. It enhances interpersonal connections and collaboration.
- Love of learning comes with increased self-confidence and open-mindedness.
- Gaining a new skill for career development or as a hobby can improve one's sense of the meaning of life. We can confidently say that the love of learning expands one's horizons significantly.
What are the benefits of having love of learning?
Love of learning comes with so many tangible benefits for both professional and personal life. Here are some of them:
Professional success
Empowered work life is one of the most fruitful aspects of the love of learning. Particularly if you love your job, and combine your performance with your passion for learning, success is easy as pie. Being involved in learning new things about your area and industry is a valuable step forward toward professional success.
With expanding digital scene, so many people must learn new things for their career prospects. The ones who enjoy the process usually stand out easily. So, if you wish to follow this path, keeping a love of learning will make you better off in your career, opening so many career possibilities.
Knowing how to learn
Love of learning functions as a base through which one can build on their abilities. Interest and motivation help one clarify their thoughts and ideas and leads to a deeper understanding of new material.
The love of learning incrementally teaches one to know how to learn. Besides, it facilitates remembering the existing knowledge base better in the long run, as well as establishing new connections as the knowledge accumulates.
Creative and free thinking
If the love of learning is a part of your personality, then you tend to think more creatively and freely. As you discover your power and abilities, you will get more courageous to try something new and unexpected in your life.
Love of learning allows seeing things differently and is extremely beneficial in work life, personal relationships, and parenting.
How to promote love of learning in the classroom?
Thanks to all the positive experiences associated with the love of learning, it is a strength that teachers, parents, therapists, employers, and peers want to foster in students, children, clients, employees, and so on.
If you are an instructor who is passionate about what you teach others and want to encourage others to deepen their knowledge enthusiastically, here are some tips about how to promote the love of learning in a classroom setting.
Encourage learning by doing
Learning by doing is the idea that we can learn something better when we perform an action related to it. So, learning by doing involves a more active approach to grasping something, unlike passive learning. Active engagement with the material provides deeper learning.
Learning by doing offers a personal experience to the learner, adding to the cycle of effort, mistakes, reflection, and retry. From this perspective, mistakes are also important as they help the learner retain knowledge.
Learning by doing enables learners to attach certain emotions to the experience, fueling their desire to learn. Promoting learning by doing involves physical and mental practices that trigger engagement.
To encourage the love of learning in a classroom setting, giving low-stakes quizzes to the participants is a good idea. These quizzes should not be based on performance assessment, but on engagement with the acquired information themselves. Physical or virtual, a classroom should ideally involve a quiz-like feature to facilitate the love of learning through hands-on practice.
Utilize games
We, humans, love playing; and game is the most important medium through which infants, babies, and children learn. Even though gamification is more central to children's learning experience, games are very fun and useful for adults too.
Gamification in the classroom serves as a method of learning by doing, but it is not confined to it. Games have a strong social component that goes beyond just merely engaging with the material. Games involve competition, and as much as the competition is productive, the love of learning is facilitated.
Furthermore, virtual games can improve focus and attention for learners with ADHD. When practiced regularly, these benefits easily lead to improved reading skills.
Gamification features provide instructors with many options that engage learners. These games help the participants grasp the material better. Gamification is a great way for a smooth classroom experience that will facilitate the love of learning.
Leave space for discussion
Depending on the topic, class context, and size, lecturing can be a vital aspect of the classroom but reflecting on the knowledge is of equal importance. Therefore, a discussion offers numerous benefits that in turn promote the love of learning.
Class discussion can take many forms, it could be semi- or fully structured, or can be more casual or informal conversations. In any form, a discussion is an activating process that allows learners to simultaneously co-construct the newly obtained information.
It is also linked to the development of critical thinking skills and increased motivation.
Icebreakers are a suitable feature for participants to work in groups in the virtual classroom. It is for discussion and decision-making between two or more people. As an instructor, you can set breakout rooms and add games and To-Do tasks to each group to have a more insightful and engaging discussion.
Help learners have a sense of community
Earlier we mentioned that the love of learning facilitates stronger collaboration. A sense of community is at play here. Creating a warm atmosphere in and beyond the classroom will foster positive feelings in participants regarding the learning experience.
You can provide opportunities for students to get involved in extracurricular activities including regular meetings and clubs. If the participants are physically distant, they might become part of an online community.
Whatever the form, they will learn from each other and feel more connected to their learning experience.
Wrap up
Love of learning is what makes us humans different than other species. It is one of the deepest human experiences that cannot be separated from our social lives. So, the love of learning is something that can be socially promoted.
The classroom is one of the primary settings for learning and experiencing the love of learning. With Perculus, you can make your training more engaging with a functional, well-designed virtual classroom experience that will help participants love learning.
