Student Success in College or Doing What Works - Essay Example

Academic success is an ideal attainment for both learners and parents. In addition, it delights schools when their students profess success in their examinations. This suggests why schools gather to celebrate admirable performances in their examinations by awarding students. However, amidst the mirth, individuals forget to scrutinize the factors that contribute to exemplary performances. In traditional contexts, academic success would only be attributed to hard work in terms of reading and examinations’ revisions. Such kind of analysis would herald other factors as mundane in contributing to excellent academic performance. It is crucial to highlight that elements of ascertaining academic success should be wide. In this perspective, it would be comprehensive to evaluate the complete impacts of play on the academic success of students and schools. Other measurements of academic success would be the emotional and psychological strengths of students. These factors relate to how intelligent learners would be in assessing the emotions of peers. Other aspects of academic success relate to criticality and creativity of students. Creativity is evident in aspects such as essay writing and science projects (Kim 23). When these aspects become part of the final grades, it becomes constructive to assess the impact of play on academic success. The impact of play is evident during the early education stages of young children. Children thrive in an educational environment by having a mixture of play and academic work. This suggests that their teachers lace their academic work with play in order that academic work makes sense in their practical lives. Children mainly have a daily life of play. They have to attain this sense in their normal lessons by playing alongside learning (Zins 57). In the end, it is discoverable that children, play notwithstanding, learn. This is a peculiar phenomenon since children play for 75 percent of their learning time. One can draw two lessons from this point. To begin with, play is an instrumental element that connects learning with the practical contexts of learners. Contexts would relate to how learners experience their environment away from school. This includes learners’ homes, estates, friends and families. When this aspect of practicality is ignored in learning, learners would tend to draw away from learning. This suggests that play is the link between learners and their curriculum. Learners are enticed by play to gauge the meaning of their curriculum. This phenomenon is highly evident in early learning stages. Some children end up acquiring negative attitudes towards learning since education did not create sense in their early learning stages. They would continue to profess unimpressive performances since they do not actively engage in their learning process. They inactively engage in learning because they acquired the perception of learning as being restrictive and lacking practicality as relates to ordinary lives. The second lesson regards the idea that lesson could accompany playful components while not compromising on the core objective of learning. In addition, learning is a social force that binds learners in one entity. Play is one of the core elements that involve the interaction of pupils and students in one context. In this perspective, several academic benefits emerge. To begin with, shy pupils attain a platform whereby they can interact with other confident learners. It is recognizable that confident learners possess an upper edge in learning since they are interactive. This suggests that the can easily participate in discussions and make queries about unclear topics (Harrington 97). On the other hand, shy students would withdraw from exposing their weakness in learning and this contravenes their conception of topics. The only alternative is to squeeze their personal efforts in presenting impressive academic performances. Through play, shy learners can interact with other students. Social relationships in the playing field can either mature into friendships or academic relationships whereby shy students can discuss with peers. It is revealed that learners would be more open with their friends than with their tutors. Such a platform of sharing is more constructive to learners than direct instruction. In addition, play creates interaction which is a vital commodity for linguistic enhancement. In acquiring the proficiency of languages, it is vital to practice the three elements of speaking, listening and writing. Learners, with limited interaction, would find it difficult to express themselves in proper language. Through interaction, learners attain correction in their articulation and statements’ projection. Language is vital for academic performance because it is the core means through which learners would project their knowledge (Marzano 160). If learners fail to properly articulate their answers, it constrains their performance because their teachers do not perceive their works. In addition, play contributes towards improving concentration of the brain. One of the most highlighted benefits of play is high self esteem. Play involves an exposed environment whereby individuals are free about themselves. This pulls learners from their closets and improves their confidence. In this aspect, they would be positive thinkers in strenuous situations. Negative thinking is a constraint to performance in examinations since students would be anxious in scenarios that they can easily handle. In addition, easy questions would seem to be complicated. This suggests that they fail to comprehend situations in as regards their real nature. When learners fail to comprehend the true complexity of questions, they provide wrong answers to less complicated assessments. Play has the capacity of deflecting negative thoughts (Biddle and Mutrie 124). Since play is a strenuous activity, it diverts the performance of the brain to the physical activity. A physical activity serves to reduce the activity of the brain to only mastering the rules of a game. This gives a relaxation period to the brain thereby surging the growth of the brain. After the end of a strenuous activity an individual would be free from stress and thoughts of anxiety. This accords an elevated platform of assessing an individual’s needs and appreciation of the self. Other than the arguments for improved cognitive ability, the aspect of relaxation to the brain improves the productivity of the same. In the end of a play the brain can focus on a single problem. A clearly thinking brain is able to divide its problems into the order of intensity and priority. In the end, it is discernible that play is a constructive element for academic success. This is attributable to the social environment that it provides to learners. Interaction contributes to openness and proper linguistic abilities. In addition, play improves the brain’s productivity by providing a platform for the brain’s relaxation. This suggests that the academic fraternity should create measures to improve play time in learning centers. Works Cited Biddle, Stuart, and Nanette Mutrie. Psychology of physical activity: determinants, well-being and interventions. New York, NY: Routledge, 2008. Print. Harrington, Christine. Student success in college: doing what works! Mason, OH: Cengage Learning, 2012. Print. Kim, Ben. 8 essential strategies for academic success. New York, NY: Dr. Ben Kim, 2005. Print. Marzano, Robert. Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement: Research on What Works In Schools. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2004. Print. Zins, Joseph. Building Academic Success on Social and Emotional Learning: What Does Research Say? New York, NY: Teachers College Press, 2004. Print. Read More