How Teenagers Learn

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Teens do not learn the same way that adults or children do. They are more efficient learners than children, with the knowledge, life experience and the brain connections that they have developed. However, they are not on par to adults as learners, due to a comparative lack of information, experience and cognitive ability. Teenagers are still developing the critical and thinking Skills throughout adolescence that a well-developed adult possesses. Despite being better at learning out of the box then young children, higher level thinking skills such as complex organisation, planning and strategising skills are not fully developed and are generally refined during the later teen years. In fact, the teen brain continues to change form and physical sculpture throughout adolescence. A teenager owns these skills but does not yet know how to exercise them to their full potential. This in turn can lead to apathy or frustration as teenagers feel they cannot achieve what is expected of them. It is also important to note that teenagers also need a minimum of nine and half hours of sleep a night in order to fully achieve their potential brain and cognitive development. So, if you think your teen students are lazy or just not getting it, perhaps its time to think twice. Most teens don’t get this amount of sleep on a daily basis, which may well contribute, to apathy, frustration or lack of concentration in the classroom.

So what is our role in the teenage classroom and how can we guide our students towards personal and academic success?

As teachers, we need to be aware of these issues, continuously researching them and training ourselves in how to approach them, taking our teaching role much further than just what is on the curriculum. After all, social behaviour is learned from a model; so we must model appropriate social skills for our students and show them how to create realistic expectations for success. It may be difficult to establish a relationship with them as their teacher; after all you can never stop being a figure of authority. But as teachers, we should focus on building a relationship with our teenage students over time, presenting ourselves as a guide to their learning process rather than the absolute power figure. Gaining our student’s interest, trust and respect are the most significant steps we can take to building a long-term relationship with them.