Infusing Joyous Learning to the Classrooms

Infusing Joyous Learning to the Classrooms

The increasingly focus on the importance of high-quality teaching for student learning puts a pressure on teachers to do miracle in the classrooms. The important dimensions of classroom teaching are the relationships teachers develop in a classroom and the classroom climate they create, the level of intellectual challenge of students’, activities and assignments, the quality of questions teachers use to facilitate discussion, and the ways in which teachers engage students in learning. Non-interactive, traditional methods used in classrooms end up producing children able to replicate but not create knowledge. The need of the hour is to inculcate the desired 21st century skills in our students such as thinking creatively, creating ‘‘new and worthwhile ideas,’’ ‘‘demonstrating originality and inventiveness in work,’’ and working collaboratively to solve problems.

What is a JOYOUS classroom?
Joyous learning has emerged as a powerful concept to change the way we manage schools and classrooms.  A joyous classroom is an active, bright and cheerful learning place where students and teachers are more creative and open to learning. Recent brain research reveals that the brain is increasingly open to learning when learning is joyful. A positive classroom climate is built through everyday teacher and student relationships and interactions and they reap positive results on an individual's health, both physically and psychologically.

How do we bring JOY to the classroom?
The increased pressure of completing syllabus and assessments on teachers and students has almost eradicated joy from classrooms. But as teachers, we want to create joy in the classroom as it facilitates more learning and certainly faster learning.  Here are some simple techniques which will help us to infuse joy into the classroom and create happy learning spaces:
JOY-1 Integrated Lesson Planning!
One of the best way to bring joy to the classroom is by integrated lesson planning. All the areas – scholastic and co-scholastic are to be integrated with each other in terms of knowledge, skills, comprehension, values and attitudes. When children are exposed to the linkage between the subjects then the diverse learning outcomes are achieved to a greater extent. Such interconnectedness give innumerous opportunities to the students to think laterally, critically, identify opportunities, and be open to new ideas. Children can be engaged in practices that promote physical, cognitive, emotional and social development that connect different areas of knowledge, application and values with their own lives and the world around them. Integrated lesson plans provide enough ways to bring joy and excitement to the classroom.
JOY-2: Art Integration!
Art integration is linking art with scholastic subjects such as mathematics, science, social-science, languages etc. Such integration of art makes lesson more interesting and children learn concepts happily in fun way.  Art education including visual & performing art. Visual art includes drawing, craft, paper cutting, paper mache etc and performing art includes dance, vocal music, instrumental music, drama etc. These must be integral parts of the curriculum and to be included in the routinal lesson planning for the holistic development of children. Art integration with other subjects promotes creative thinking, imagination and expression. It is often seen that children enjoy their art and sports classes the most and the teacher who teaches them art and sports are the most favourite teachers. As such art is the heart and soul of all subjects. Music and dance are taken as stress busters’ even for adult. Such activities are necessary for the development of the affective and psychomotor domain. Hence integrating art with other subjects will make classroom joyous and will give enough opportunities of leaning happily.   

JOY-2: Give special attention to the learning materials you use in class!
Learning materials or teaching aids play an important role in lesson planning. Special attention is to be given to this area while planning a lesson. Attractive learning materials such as flash cards, charts, exit cards, models, pictures etc generate curiosity and interest in children about the subject and when interest is generated then optimum learning takes place.  
JOY 3: Listen to your students’ heart & mind
It is important for a teacher to listen to his/her students. All children are different; some express their feelings and some do not express. Hence it is more important to listen to both heart and mind of your students. This will further help in building strong relationship of trust between student and teacher. Strong relationship between students and teacher helps them to grow emotionally and psychologically. When a teacher intentionally builds trust and rapport with students, she/he creates a safe place and space for joy to emerge. Student engagement and involvement in planning a lesson is also increased as they will be open to give new ideas and share what they already know, what they want to know and how they want to learn. When a teacher understands what my students want to learn and how they want to learn then innovative planning is triggered.     
JOY 4: Appreciate your students
Appreciations are like magic wrist bands. Appreciation can do wonders in terms of changing behavior and getting desired outcomes. Appreciate every child for every small or big task he/she has performed. Appreciation can be done by various ways such as public appreciation like in calling out names in assembly, classroom chart, material appreciation like giving toffees, giving smilies in the copy etc.   Some students need high degree of motivation and some needs less. A teacher has to learn the art of appreciating and must know when and how to appreciate. A teacher must know the need of kind and amount of appreciation. Over dose of appreciation may result into over confidence.  

JOY 5: Let your children feel that they are very special to you
A teacher must create a learning space in the classroom in which every child should feel special and important. Set your class room rules which give equal opportunities of participation and speaking to all in the classroom. Feeling of favoritism, ignorance, negligence, less important, not existing in the classroom, no one is concerned etc will be discouraged. If a child is made to feel that she/he is very special and important to us then the teacher automatically invite pleasure and joy to the classroom for happy learning.

JOY 6: Integrate ICT
Information technology is necessary for holistic learning that is experiential and linked to real-life situations. These children are born with technology in their hand hence if teachers incorporate ICT in their instructional planning; children will take more interest to actively participate in classroom activities while transaction of lesson. We to find situations that help students incorporate what they learned in their everyday lives using technology. ICT brings joy and makes classroom happy for learning.

JOY 7: Trust your students and let them give new ideas
Children like to create things hence provide opportunities to the students to create in the classroom. While engage children in such acts, keep in mind to trust them. When you trust your students’ creativity, they work with better ideas and originality to showcase you the best. The list of what students can create across the curriculum is virtually limitless: newspapers and magazines, brochures, stories, picture books, posters, PowerPoint presentations, role-plays, songs, surveys, graphs, documentary videos etc.

JOY 8: Differential Instructional Planning
Differential instructional planning caters to the children of different learning abilities. A teacher must know his/her students learning styles and accordingly instructional planning is to be done that will invite joy to your classroom.

JOY 9: Surprise them by exploring out of the four walls of the classroom
Surprise your students by doing something unexpected or something out of routinal classroom planning. Take them out of the classroom to take lesson under a tree, field visits can be planned to various sites, play with them and let them discover their own potential. Surprises always bring joy and hence will surely make classroom joyous.

Conclusion
A teacher is like a candle who burns itself to give light to others. When a teacher creates learning spaces by infusing joy in the classroom, optimum learning outcomes are achieved. Such joyful, active and experiential learning helps in inculcating 21st century skills in the learners of different abilities.