We do not teach our students how to connect the dots, which is a big mistake. Making connections is another way to describe learning how things are related to each other and how the physical world works. Babies make connections from the minute they're born, like knowing that it is feeding time when they see a bottle. As young children grow and develop, they learn to make connections to understand and master their worlds. We continue to make these connections all the way into adulthood, and these connections are what allow us to understand and be successful in the world we live in.
Students need a personal connection to the material, whether that’s through engaging them emotionally or connecting the new information with previously acquired knowledge. Without that, students may disengage and quickly forget, but they may also lose the motivation to try. Relevance is a key component to intrinsically motivating student learning. By establishing both personal and real-world relevance, students are given a significant opportunity to relate the course subject matter to the world around them and assimilate it according to their previously held assumptions and beliefs. Relevance is a key factor in providing a learning context in which students construct their own understanding of the course material.
References
Fink, L. D. (2003). A Self-Directed Guide to Designing Courses for Significant Learning. Jossey-Bass.
Harapnuik, D. (2021, February 24). Aligning Outcomes, Activities & Assessments: Learners Mindset Fundamentals. You Tube – Learners Mindset. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsmbuD00Vfg
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