An introduction to thematic learning

Responsibility in the learning process is a very important topic for students of any age. It is important for the student to participate in their own education and to be responsible for their own decisions in this process.

Humans always tend to criticize the decisions of others but we are more understanding and we show more will to fix or improve things when we have taken those decisions together.

From our point of view, it is important for the student to be responsible for their own learning and even to ask the teacher what they want to learn as long as their approaches are consistent and they fit within the curriculum.

A specific case: The knowledge passport.

In our school we have a cycle with low motivated and less proactive students. In my subject of assembly and maintenance of microcomputer equipment we have implemented what we call the knowledge passport or simply “the passport”. The passport is a document that we have printed with school logos and bound in a special way to give it the necessary importance. This document is delivered to the student at the beginning of the course.

In this passport the student has a series of knowledge that he has to acquire and a series of practices or experiments that he has to carry out. When the student achieves some of these milestones, he shows it to the teacher and he verifies that it has been met and stamps that item in the passport.

Since the passport was used, the responsibility for learning has been transferred from the teacher to the student and now the student is responsible for completing the knowledge passport in order to pass the course.

Also in the passport there are blank activities which will have to be proposed either by the teacher or by the student. These extraordinary activities will serve for the student to learn according to their concern and motivation. The advantageous or more motivated student will do a series of more complicated practices or exercises while other students will do more basic exercises.

Someone would say: Why don’t you keep that passport electronically? The answer is simple, we return to the topic of the responsibility of the students in their own learning. This document is intended to be different from a rubric notebook and it is the responsibility of the students to take it with them and fill it in with the supervision of the teacher.