Why Hands-On is the Best Type of Learning

How does learning hands-on help children learn and keep the lessons they are taught life long?

Kids often ask their teachers: “Do we really need to learn this for real life?” In short, their answer is yes, but schools don’t always do the best job proving it. Hands-on learning is a very specific form of learning, among visual, auditory, reading/writing, and is also called kinesthetic learning, which quite literally means “learning by doing.” By learning through this form, students are able to better see how they could be using the knowledge obtained in real-life situations.

Hands-on learning is also beneficial in not just learning, but enhancing specific skill sets, like problem-solving, critical thinking, creative freedom, and more. Being engaged and working with a group of people to solve a real-life problem based on a small lesson at school is a very simple but powerful example of hands-on learning.

Schools find hands-on learning a difficult form to incorporate into their daily teaching for a variety of reasons, including tight budgets and short time, but it is still a form of learning in which many students find best to learn with. Younger students especially find it hard to stay attentive during hour-long classes without any movement at all. They are not to blame because inspiration usually comes when there is life in learning. When 81% of high school dropouts would’ve stayed if their schools had more real-world and practical learning opportunities, a change in the way kids learn is to be made.

The struggle to get academically good grades increases as you get older, making you focus mainly on trying to get enough information into your head just for a corresponding test. Six months later, you may forget everything, but hands-on is the best way to remember what you learned because you are physically connecting with your knowledge and enjoying it too!

In recent times, because of COVID-19, many schools have been forced to shut down, which brings hands-on learning to a new minimum, forcing students to learn by using videos or virtual demonstrations. Luckily, in the short term, there are many resources to purchase online and many different ways to help kids learn at home, but depending on how important hands-on learning is to a kid (every kid does learn a different way) and how much you prioritize hands-on learning, you might want to make sure that the school that meets those expectations.

Here at Bubble, we work towards using all forms of learning, but focusing on hands-on, as it is predominantly not found in schools.

This summer, we are planning on a bunch of kinesthetic STEM projects for our camp, so stay tuned for updates or check out our programs page to sign up.