Passion Based Learning

What do you think about when you hear the term, “passion based learning?” What I first thought of when I heard it, was that it is learning while working towards being passionate about the material, so that it would make learning easier. After doing some research, I found that I was not exactly right. Passion based learning is something that is going to be different for everyone. According to Edutopia Passion Based Learning, this is something that helps students successfully complete a goal that is meaningful to them. This website was a great source, and gave me a lot of understandable information. It talks about how we need to bring passion back into learning. Sometimes I feel like schools can get caught up in standardized testing, and really focusing solely on “raising the test score.” Realistically, the less a child is interested in the learning material, the less ambition they will have to succeed. Maybe if we included their own personal passions in what we are trying to teach them, they will be more excited about learning!

Photo CC: Hannah***

This article on Edutopia also gave two ways, as a teacher, to get a child passionate about something:

1. Find out what each child is innately passionate about. (get to know them)
2. Be an instructor that exudes passion for that topic, and infect your students with excitement.

These made me think, “Hey, I could do that!”

The next article I read was Guidelines for Passionate Learning. Angela Maiers gives great tips towards setting a foundation for passion based learning. She explained how important it is to show relevance to life outside of school. This is such a powerful statement to me. If you are not going to show students how they will use the material they are teaching in real life, or a real meaning to what they are learning, how do you expect them to grasp the concept? Maiers explains that passion is infectious! I can definitely agree with this, especially when you get students parents involved and active in their child’s education and passions, I feel that it could cause a great positive chain reaction in an entire school, or even world! When students start realizing that they can apply their passions to their education, which they are required, it could make learning a whole new ball game.

I really liked researching the topic of passion based learning, it is just another key concept that I will for sure apply to my future classroom. It is so great hearing other teachers and future teachers talk about how they have hope for our children’s academic future. I can’t wait to continue learning and evolving the definition of MY passion of helping make learning wonderful for students.