Hands-off teaching cultivates Metacognition

Education has always been important part of one’s life and it has changed with times as earlier there was only classroom based teaching but with times there are so many methods of teaching like providing smart class to students , Online education, project based learning and etc though the prime goals of each method is to provide student with a environment where they can learn and understand in more efficient way and gain valuable knowledge and become successful in life. 

There is new technique  which schools like boarding school of India mainly the Girls boarding school in Dehradun are implementing where they are using Hands off teaching methods to teach students as the name suggest it doesn’t mean they let students learn whatever they wanna learn and not take responsibility for it but actually it mean is let the students learn by giving them the opportunity to solve the problem by themselves using their own thinking to think about the material and break down in parts and try to solve the problem step by step this improve students critical thinking and problem solving skills and  that cultivate metacognition  which help them learn and understand material in a more practical manner and they will able to store this information for the rest of their life unlike Rote learning methods where student learn just to pass the exam.

Why is Hands-off teaching so effective ? 

Hands-off teaching is effective because they use more practical approaches in learning than normal classroom teaching. For example, if the teacher has to teach students about what a cell is ? Who found it ?  How does he find it? It will generally take 10 minutes for the teacher to tell children everything about cell but will they able to learn anything the answer is no because they depend on the teacher for their learning whereas if we use a hands-off teaching approach teachers will give the students all the tools which Robert Hooke had at the time when he discovered the cell so now students have to use their own thinking and think about the cell and find all the answer by themselves this kind of hands-off teaching cultivates metacognition improve critical thinking and problem-solving.

Ways to use Hands-off Teaching 

There are so many ways in which teacher can use this teaching technique like : 

1. Create challenges –  when teachers put students outside of their routine classes and give out of the box Challenge to their students  ask them like why is the world round ? Let them use their logical thinking to finds answer 
2. Give projects – teachers should  assign meaningful projects to students  like do a find a difficult topic  research on that and even  let them form a defensible conclusion  this tend of projects let students to engage with it better and learn effectively.
3. Provide support to students – though as the name suggest it let students to learn by themselves but not every student is created equal some students can do it without help but this technique works when teachers provide support to the students who not able to find the answer so teacher tell them  to follow step by step to get to the answer. Just this small help students are able to absorb the information effectively.

Benefits of Hands-off Teaching

• When students are aware of what they are thinking and how to use their thinking to  their advantage and find the solution by themselves their brain starts working faster and smarter and students are able to learn and understand better.
• Hands-off teaching helps students to engage with the material in a more personal way as they have to use their own thinking. This results in improving the performance of the students and they are able to gain practical knowledge at a very young age.
• Help student build key skills like Critical Thinking and problem solving as students have to depend on themselves for the answer  so they will focus and use their thinking to finds the answers which ultimately led to the development of two main skills of critical thinking and problem solving which not only now but will help them in future.

Future of Hands-off Teaching 

This type of teaching is becoming popular day by day as it provides valuable knowledge to students. More  schools like Boarding schools of India have come forward to use this teaching method to help students learn and understand material in better and a more effective way. As it not only the performance of students but it helps to cultivate Metacognition.