Never Underestimate The Influence Of Theoretical Learning Vs Practical Learning

“In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.” – Manfred Eigen

If you take a flashback down the memory lane of the times when you were in school or college what is it that you remember the most. Probably the long hours of sitting classes after classes of lectures is one thing, coupled with the fact of shreds of thoughts that wondered what was the reason for sitting in those classes, and what good can we get from these lectures?

Then again there were instances when we used to go all distant and wonder “what are they saying” or “how is any of this important for my career”. We are pretty sure each one of us may have had this thought at some point of time or the other. Depending upon the choice of career that one picks up, the study patterns also change. Some fields require extra hours put in the classes with lectures when students normally wonder “if only I could practice this practically, it will help me understand how it is relevant”. Based on this very fact educators and teachers decided to give to the students a chance to understand how’s instead of understanding the what’s.

More clearly put, all throughout school and college life students are told and taught what is important but are never really told why it is important for them. Did it ever happen with you that you felt disconnected in a class when a teacher was explaining something? Or for that fact did a subject which once interested you, suddenly seem lame and boring?   All this happens merely because students are just pushed to learning something without getting them engaged.

During our school years, students always found Science lectures very interesting, because our science teacher always gave us many examples and explained the topic giving references from everyday life which we could relate to. Today, with science and technology progressing, things in the education sector have also changed. And thanks to all these progress students have gotten a chance to experience studies with a balance of theoretical and practical aspects.

Those educationists who look at ways of redefining the education sector have observed closely that students who opt for professional courses should be able to practice what they are taught in the classrooms. For example, a student learning Law needs to be able to practice at mock sessions so that they can be given various scenarios to practice making dispositions and actually fight a case. Merely mugging up laws and legal technicalities will not be enough if they are not aware of how to handle a scenario when they have to actually fight for a case. Such is the importance that practical teaching holds. There is a very old saying that one should practice what they preach and in the case of students picking up a major, they need to practice the subject that they preach.

According to the learning principles found so far, there are several different types of learners that one can encounter. As such there are 8 different types of learners which can be classified into:

•   Visual learners

•   Verbal learners

•   Logical learners

•   Auditory learners

•   Social learners

•   Intrapersonal learners

•   Physical learners

•   Naturalistic learners

For a teacher teaching a classroom full of students, it becomes very difficult to analyze who learns the best in which way. This is why it is the safest to undertake a practice which embodies teaching in a balanced way of theory and practice & provide nursing assignments. It is due to this very reason that the maintaining of this balance between the theory-based and practical based learning be met at all times. Today more and more educational institutes are implementing and practicing a student-centered teaching module which gives the students more control over their ways of learning the best.

Gone are the days when the rote ways of teaching are enough to feed the curiosity of the students. Today, the students want to know the logical reason behind every rule and principle. If a teacher says that food is important they want to know exactly why. Simply telling them that it is important won’t be enough and it most certainly will not stop the questions coming your way. The earlier ways of teaching implied that students just take down notes and agree to everything that a teacher said, however, students of today will question you about everything. This is a good thing because this means that they are engaged and are attentive to what you are saying.

At the end of the day, no teacher will want a classroom of children who just agree to everything that they say. Any teacher will want a class filled with activity and a lot of questions, because the more the questions, the better are the chances of a student to excel at creativity and thinking out of the box. The time today demands critical thinking over the rote thinking adopted previously, which is why it is essential that educational institutes apply the more recent pedagogy of imparting theory with the help of practice. This careful balance will only ensure that at the end of their education students will be equipped with the fundamental knowledge along with the important ability to analyze and apply what they learned in a more practical way.

It is evident that education is important and without it no student will be able to succeed, however with the generation growing only more informed with the help of technology, sticking to the rote teaching ways won’t do any good. The only way of going about education in a redefined way is to understand that it is critical that every educational institute encourages students to practice what they learn. In the end, we will quote an instance from the very famous fiction movie series of Harry Potter. One of the main subjects taught to the students was ‘Defense against the Dark Arts’ and in one part they were told to only read the theory to pass their exams. It is here when a group of students actually question ‘how will we fight tomorrow if we are not able to practice the spell of defense against the dark arts for real?’

This one example is enough to show that for a student theory and practical based learning is the two steps to a complete education. The absence of even one of these steps will result in the student failing. The two pillars of a wholesome education are both theoretical and practical learning. Learning is when you are taught something theoretically and training is when one can practice the same learning practically.

Article written by Nick Wilks, An academic expert at GoAssignmentHelp.