Growing IQ Emphasizes Hands-On, Experiential Learning

Tutoring franchises have been a staple tool of motivated students and supportive parents for decades, but there’s a unique model right here in Frisco that sets itself apart with a student-centric curriculum, a hands-on focus, and fantastic results.

Growing IQ boasts that it’s “a math-centric enrichment program that allows a child to analyze, discover, examine, and take ownership of their mathematical learning.”

The curriculum is completely designed around a hands-on, experiential model of learning.

Flashcards, memorization, drills, and rote memory are set aside for a model of learning that pushes students to discover, learn, and build upon their own knowledge in a self-directed way.

Uma Mohan, the owner of the Frisco’s Growing IQ location, emphasizes, “In our curriculum, there is no memorization – there are no worksheets or electronic – understanding the fundamentals of why and how things work and discovering things for themselves through manipulatives.”

Growing IQ didn’t invent this idea. Hands-on learning has always been around as a model and has become an increasingly popular method of instruction as data has begun to align with what its proponents have always known: children learn better through experience.

As far back as 2009, Purdue conducted a study of 8th-graders with the results demonstrating that the experiential learners gained far more learning, both in terms of higher scores and increased understanding, than did the students exposed only to lectures and traditional curriculum.

Growing IQ focuses on three steps in the learning process:

Growing IQ classes are centered on student engagement in mathematical inquiry, extending beyond procedural understanding. Our teachers encourage their students to collaborate, create, and come to their own conclusions by providing stimulating, sensory-rich activities. Classes are tailored to diverse learning styles by employing the three E’s: Exploration, Examination, and Experience.

Growing IQ’s programming encourages students to explore, mostly relying on learning through building, combining, and exploring manipulatives. Students are grouped with other students of similar levels, whether they’re struggling, at-level, or gifted and talented, rather than simply being grouped by age or grade.

The students then examine what they see as they experiment together with the manipulatives and discuss and explain their observations to each other as they work. Finally, the students build upon the experience that has occurred in the group to expand their understanding.

In regards to the unique way in which study groups are created at Growing IQ, Mohan remarks,

Having students in groups with students similar to them builds their confidence. They begin to have ‘ah ha!’ moments; things start to click and they start progressing faster.

This model of hands-on learning is a proven one. Quite a bit of data has demonstrated that students retain more and understand more thoroughly when learning involves hands-on activities.

One study indicates that, although students only retain about 30% of a concept taught in a traditional classroom, hands-on learning could help students retain as much as 75% of the concepts to which they are exposed.

Growing IQ doesn’t just provide support for one category of student. Their programming can be a resource for students of all kids.

Many homeschooling parents use it as a resource; Gifted and Talented students enjoy the additional challenge; struggling students see other students struggling with the same things and get a confidence boost as well as the support they need to succeed.