How do you know when learning is happening? Here are five signs to look for.
Here's what you'll learn in this article:
- Learn how to recognize the signs that your children are on a solid foundation of learning in home school.
- 5 signs that your children are learning in home school.
- Answers to common questions about what learning looks like.
- Key takeaways to recognize your children’s progress.
- Where to learn more about incorporating rich learning experiences in home school.
What Does Learning Look Like?
Learning happens every day, whether we label it that way or not. People are continuously interacting with their environments and looking to make sense of behavior and experiences. We learn how to respond to different people and situations to help us navigate life. Home school is a space to gain exposure to a variety of learning that prepares us for life.
School has become a space to provide learning experiences that our culture has deemed important for success in navigating life. Because life is complex, there is still a lot of variation in what learning experiences are deemed most important. Similarly, because society is everchanging, the learning experiences change over time too. The challenge is to nkow on a daily basis and at the level of a single child what learning is happening and whether it enough to navigate life.
5 Signs Your Children are Learning in Home School
Since learning is many things, there is no single way to know if it is happening. There are a lot of ways to identify learning and gauge if it is likely enough. Here are five signs to look for:
1. Types of Learning
Learning what is necessary to navigate life depends on what life you lead. For example, if you only live in the tropics, then you never need to learn how to drive in snow. But what if you decide you want to move to a place with snow? Learning is a combination of gaining the relevant skills to navigate the life you have, and learning how to learn, so you can adapt to changes that inevitably arise.
As you home school you will never be able to teach your children all the topics they need, but you can give them a solid foundation. And for the topics that you don’t get to or think of, you can give them the gift of knowing how to learn the rest. As you look to assess whether learning is happening, consider what foundation your are giving your children and whether they are building skills to navigate uncertainty.
2. Learning Over Time
Learning never stops. You have lots space each day to give your children the guidance and support they need to enjoy rich learning experiences. Creating regular opportunities for learning that are a mixture of guided and self-directed activities provides an environment that builds confidence and a well-rounded understanding.
Use home school as the framework for exposing your children to learning that wouldn’t otherwise occur in daily life. Think of home school as your space for creativity, curiosity, and discovery. How often do you see your child light up over such a discovery? Are these moments happening in varied subjects? Look for creativity, curiosity, and discovery daily.
3. Learning Habits
Habits are built with regular practice. To know if learning is happening, consider your children’s learning habits. How do they solve unknowns? What settings and approaches do they prefer for engaging with material? Observing your children’s learning habits and helping them cultivate one’s that work for them are key for learning. Look for signs that your child is growing more confident in how they engage with new material.
4. Learning Challenges
Learning isn’t always easy or fun. While we do learn from adversity, home school is a safe space to provide challenges that are just out of reach but not overly so. Does your child experience these types of challenges in home school? How often? If the challenges are infrequent, then it may be worth elevating the exposure to more novel or advanced topics. If the challenges are occurring multiple times in a single day, then be vigilant to consider scaling back to avoid undo stress and burnout.
It can be alluring to focus only on areas of obvious strength, but that centers learning as an outcome, not a process. Avoiding weaknesses because children don’t want to work through a challenge suggests that failure or difficulty is bad when it isn’t. Working through weaknesses is an opportunity to approach the learning as a problem to solve with critical thinking and creativity.
5. Learning Processes
Learning is a life long practice. It is never done. There is always more to learn. The common question right now is what is enough? We want our children to lead good lives. While we may vary on what we consider a “good life”, none of us know what the future will hold for our children. Giving them well-rounded learning in home school will help them keep options and be able to discover their own path.
When homeschooling, what does your children’s creativity look like? When are they thinking critically and making discoveries? What inspires their curiosity and keeps them engaged? How do they respond to difficulty? Look for signs that they are expanding their toolkits for how they learn—from using previously learned skills to in new contexts to connecting subjects in more complex ways.
FAQs: Knowing that Learning is Occurring is Part of Homeschooling
What about grades and tests?
Grades and tests give you more information about learning, but they aren’t a complete picture. While grades and tests may have an outsized role in traditional school, they are still valuable when they are put into the right context. While it is typically up to you how your use grades and tests in home school, it is helpful to give your children an understanding of how they function in traditional school.
For younger children, it can be enough to provide no-pressure testing scenarios. For older children, you can engage their critical thinking by debating the pros and cons. Regardless of how much you employ grades and tests, aim to provide some exposure to build your children’s understanding of how to engage with the feedback and to provide you valuable information on areas that may be wroth further exploration.
Is all learning fit for home school?
No, probably not. If your child has mastered a topic, then it is likely time to consider that topic learned and no longer a part of home school in the same capacity. Working with the topic in a new way keeps it a fit for home school.
Likewise, if your child does chores, once they’ve learned how to perform the activity as part of a practical life lesson and mastered the skill then doing the chores becomes more about learning the responsibility of ongoing life management, which is part of everyday life, not home school. Home school stays engaging when it includes novel learning experiences that engage the process of learning.
Key Takeaways
- Lookout for learning. Learning is fundamental to home school, so get comfortable with seeing how it shows up.
- Learning is a multitude. Learning is evident in so many ways from how we create to how we engage others.
- Learn openly. Focusing on the use of a particular skill can devalue it to only being about the outcome; try to stay focused on the joy of the discovery.
- Learning affords possibilities. Incorporating guided and independent learning opportunities across varied topics allows opportunities to find new paths.
Where to Learn More
If you would like more information about building home school lessons and experiences that are custom-tailored to your children's needs, consider becoming a member of Crush Home School. With our membership plan, you get monthly guidance delivered to your inbox with downloadable resources and much more. Learn more about becoming a Crush Home School member.