The Leonardo Effect

The Leonardo effect is based loosely on the work of Leonardo Da Vinci, hence the name ‘Leonardo Effect’. Da Vinci possessed the same curiosity as a child; he questioned everything. First hand experiences and the use of all senses are what Da Vinci thought were essential to the development of his ideas.

The Leonardo effect is an educational approach, which combines both science and art in order to help children live up to their full educational potential. A key aspect of this methodology is involving the children in the planning and the decision making of their education.  

(Hickey and Robson, 2012).

  I believe that Sir Ken Robinsons animation video captures accurately what the Leonardo effect stands for. The Leonardo effect allows children to develop their ideas and knowledge through creative methods. By allowing children the freedom to investigate through artistic and scientific methods and enabling teachers to be flexible with facilitating the pupils within the classroom, the children exceed others expectations which are set by the traditional education approaches. This is successful through allowing the children the ability to set their own goals and aspirations (Leonardo effect, 2011).

It is stated that teachers find this educational approach empowering. They’ve discovered through experience that the children not only develop incredible creative skills but, through engaging with the classroom activities willingly, the children’s literacy and numeracy benefit greater than those children following the national curriculum approach.

There are four main stages to the Leonardo effect:-

Stage 1. Capture children’s imaginations:

The use of first- hand experiences, capture the children’s attention and helps generate questions. Curiosity is key in discovery based learning, as it creates the initiative to explore deeper into a subject, therefore producing a greater understanding for the pupil. 

Stage 2. Development:

If the children are excited by the happenings of inside the classroom for example through the use of kinesthetic, visual, auditory or any other learning styles, they generally create greater neural connections, which greater develops the pupil's understanding of the subject in question.

Stage 3. Creation:

In the Leonardo effect, the children are challenged to apply the knowledge they have gained through a creative context. The aim of this is to further the pupils understanding, which usually exceeds the national requirement. There are excessive studies regarding stage 3, which produce evidence of its success. 

Stage 4. Reflect and Communicate:

The aim of this stage is to allow children to evaluate and reflect on their work through communicating their work to a wider audience. This is to help children to communicate what they have learnt and teach others what they know, which is beneficial for their confidence and self esteem.

 (Leonardo Effect, 2011)

References

Hickey, I., Robson, D. (2012) The Leonardo Effect: Motivating Children To Achieve Through Interdisciplinary Learning, London: Routledge

Leonardo Effect (2011) Retrieved 1^st of May 2014 from http://www.leonardoeffect.com/connecting_learning_to_hard_to_reach_children.html

Leonardo Effect (2011) Retrieved 1^st of May 2014 from http://www.leonardoeffect.com