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This article gives a summary of the five steps of design thinking by Stanford's D school and describes the importance of teacher training for this to be successful.

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Advocates of design thinking in education know what you've heard. "Its hard to look at design thinking and not see it as a buzzword," says Ryan Bretag, director of instructional innovation at Glenbrook High Schools District 225 outside Chicago.

"When we narrow down design thinking to just a bunch of steps that you can follow and there's no depth to those steps, then we're missing the whole point."

Design thinking has been around since the 1960s but reached K12 education only in the last decade. Some call it a revolution in learning, while others see it as just the latest fad, better left to Silicon Valley charter schools.

Sidebar: 5 phases of design thinking

Part of the problem is that design thinking can be hard to define and even harder to use in the classroom in a meaningful way. Bretag-a believer in the benefits of the approach-says he often hears people who are trying to understand design thinking ask, "How is that any different from project-based learning or the scientific method?"

Many describe design thinking as both a process and a mindset, a way of solving problems and of seeing the world.

Sam Seidel, director of K12 strategy and research at Stanford's d.school, a leader in design thinking, says it represents a way of applying creativity to complex challenges: Students learn to empathize with the people they are trying to help, to design solutions, to test and refine, and to embrace failure as a learning opportunity.

Along the way they begin to navigate ambiguity, experiment and interpret results. This inherently optimistic process shows students that anyone can make the world a better place, says Becky Peters, program manager at the Innovation Center at St. Vrain Valley Schools (32,000 students) in Colorado, which has taught design thinking for nearly a decade.

"Everything around us is designed, and everything can be redesigned," she says. "That's really what we're doing in education these days-helping students understand that they can have that kind of impact."

Not everything looks like a nail

St. Vrain Valley started teaching design thinking in a high school STEM academy. That spread to the academy's feeder schools and then throughout the district, thanks to a 2012 Race to the Top grant for STEM instruction.

Each summer the district hosts Innovation Academy, a two-week program in which elementary schoolers visit a nearby IBM facility to work with staff on design challenges to solve environmental problems.

This fall, the district will open an elementary school centered on design thinking, with concepts such as empathy and innovation at its foundation, and administrative decisions-from the curriculum to the format of parent-teacher conferences to master scheduling-made using design thinking.

"It's not that everything looks like a nail, and this is a hammer," says Peters. "We're trying to figure what we need and what's the best methodology for approaching it. A lot of time design thinking happens to be that methodology."

Design thinking can't be taught in isolation, but it can be used in a range of content-specific classes, from the humanities to STEM. St. Vrain Valley students as young as pre-kindergarten have followed design thinking to create biodegradable drinking straws, habitats for embattled honeybees, soccer balls for blind people and a hat that relieves headache symptoms. When the city of Longmont was preparing to redesign the playground at a public park, fourth-graders at nearby Indian Peaks Elementary School interviewed park users and prototyped designs that city planners used to craft the real thing.

New interests equal success

While design thinking may be a polarizing term, these sorts of lessons-where students design and test solutions-have mainstream appeal, says Henry Mann, program director at FUSE, an online STEAM program developed at Northwestern University in Chicago.

"There are teachers across every kind of school you can imagine who are desperately seeking out these kinds of experiences for their students," he says.

FUSE started in 2012 in six schools; it is now in 140, from schools in rural Michigan to tech-centric academies in Brooklyn. Students choose from 30 challenges-they can design a house, a roller coaster or a car, for example. They gradually become the subject matter experts with teachers acting as facilitators.

Importantly, Mann says, students are not evaluated by the number of challenges they complete or by the quality of their finished products. They are assessed on whether they developed a new interest or new expertise, or whether they exhibited a greater level of collaboration, critical thinking or other soft skill.

"We talk about failing forward and all these different buzzwords around failure and learning-'growth mindset,' for example," Mann says. "That's all well and good, but until we think about how we redesign the actual infrastructure of learning and how we measure learning, a lot of that is just not going to come to pass."

Getting teachers to use this level of creative problem-solving-let alone getting them to teach concepts like creativity, ideation and empathy-can be a big ask. But the more they practice design, the stronger the required mental muscles become, says Stanford's Seidel.

The d.school offers in-person and online trainings in design thinking, including a 90-minute "crash course" webinar-enough to get an educator excited about the new approach.

But, Seidel adds, teachers will need more exposure than the crash course to use the process with students in a meaningful way. That exposure can come through formal training, seeing the process in action or through real-world practice.

The furniture formula

It is not just students who can benefit from exercises in design thinking. Glenbrook administrators got their own crash course three years ago, when the 5,000-student high school district set out to buy new classroom furniture.

Officials surveyed teachers, flipped through a catalog and weighed choices such as tables versus desks, and chairs that swivel versus seats with four legs.

"It failed miserably," Bretag says. "When you run a traditional process, often preference supersedes purpose." So they tried again, this time using design thinking, and ended up reimagining the problem.

The question went from "What furniture should we get?" to "How can we improve the student experience?"

They spent more than a year talking to students and observing how they sat in their chairs. New questions that arose included "What does it mean when they can't fidget, or when they can't stand up or move around while they work?"

The district also consulted neuroscientists, social psychologists and experts in well-being and creativity. "We said 'OK, how might we build spaces that foster this degree of well-being?' And that was the eye-opening epiphany moment," Bretag says.

Next came four rounds of prototyping, testing and redesigning classrooms. It was a longer process than anyone intended, but Bretag says the results were better than they expected. Instead of trying out furniture types they thought might work, the end result was classrooms designed to promote well-being and active learning.

So far the design thinking is not taught explicitly in Glenbrook's classrooms. But it is included in new teacher orientation, and the district encourages teachers to draw on elements of design thinking every day: to be in the moment, work together, be human-centered and be open to new ideas rather than accepting something simply because that's how it has always been.

If teachers can embody those principles, Bretag says, that's how design thinking can reach students.
Abby Spegman is a freelance writer in Washington.

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Advocates of design thinking in education know what you've heard. "Its hard to look at design thinking and not see it as a buzzword," says Ryan Bretag, director of instructional innovation at Glenbrook High Schools District 225 outside Chicago.

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The Art and Science of Designing Competencies.pdf

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A community site for educators - sharing tools, resources, and updates for competency-based schools from the Office of New School Models, School District of Philadelphia.

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Sanborn Competency Based Learning Handbook

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Sanborn Competency Based Learning Handbook

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An example of one school's five year progression to becoming a competency based learning school.

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Element description

Customized learning paths allow learners to co-design with educators their learning rather than simply comply with the directions and expectations of adults. This component is designed to help learners take ownership of their learning, find greater meaning and purpose and become increasingly independent in their learning skills.

Step 1: Develop personal learning goals. The educator and learner work to develop short, intermediate, and long-term personal learning goals. Expected outcomes must be specific and aligned to intermediate and long-term goals so that the learner can see a clear path forward.

Step 2: Select activities and resources to support learning. Both the educator and the learner suggest activities and resources to use in meeting the student's personal learning goals. Educators present what they can offer, (e.g., strategic instructional seminars, learning activities, useful resources). Learners also suggest what they might contribute to the plan, (e.g., collaborating with classmates on specific tasks, locating apps to support learning).

Step 3: Identify progress markers. The educator and learner identify markers that show progress toward meeting each learning goal. Markers are based on formative assessment data and help learners to focus on learning progress rather than simply what activities and tasks they're doing. Progress markers also allow the educator and learner to determine whether changes in the learning path may be necessary to ensure accomplishment of each goal.

Step 4: Define how the learning will be demonstrated. The final step in constructing customized learning paths is defining how learning will be demonstrated. Early on, learners often are inclined to defer to educators on assessment matters, but as they commit to their learning goals they are likely to identify learning demonstrations and other representations that are even more rigorous than those the educators might choose.

The process of co-creating learning paths helps students develop key life skills. The discipline and organization that learners employ in planning their learning will serve them well long after they leave school to pursue lifelong endeavors.

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Customized learning paths allow learners to co-design with educators their learning rather than simply comply with the directions and expectations of adults. This component is designed to help learners take ownership of their learning, find greater meaning and purpose and become increasingly independent in their learning skills. Step 1: Develop personal learning goals.

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Key shifts of CBL

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Article 8 - Key Shifts of CBL (Schaef, 2015) (1).pdf

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A nice summary of the differences between learner-driven, learner- centered, teacher-driven, and curriculum centered.

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An example of another country's standards, in this case Australia.

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NSW curriculum and syllabuses | NSW Education Standards

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Learn about the syllubuses and curriculum in NSW.

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Heidi Hayes Jacobs: "21st Century Teaching & Learning within the Common Core"

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Whether we are developing new programs or courses or we are revising existing curriculum, the decisions we make can be informed and guided by applying concepts and principles of curriculum design.

There are several concepts that can guide the development and review of all types of curricula at both the program and course level.

Alignment and Coherence - all parts of the curriculum must be logically consistent with each other. There must be a "match" or a fit between parts.

Scope - the range or extent of "content" (whether information to be learned, skills to be acquired etc.) that will be included in a course or program. It must be sufficient to lead learners to achieve the program or course outcomes. However, there is a constant tension between breadth and depth when considering scope. In general, when deep learning is required, "lean" is best.

Sequence - is the ordering of learning experiences so that learners build on previous experiences and move to broader, deeper or more complex understandings and applications. Common ways of sequencing content within courses include simple to complex, wholes to parts (or part to wholes), prerequisite abilities, and chronological.

Continuity - refers to the vertical repetition of major curriculum elements in different courses over time (also known as vertical organization or articulation). It is important to identify the themes or skills that need to run through a program and to map how they will be addressed at each level.

Integration - refers to the horizontal relationship among major curriculum components at any given point in time (also known as horizontal organization). Integration fosters reinforcement of key learning and is needed to promote application of learning across course boundaries.

Gordon Cawelt (1990) of The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) offered these principles to guide course planning.

1. Offer a balanced core of learning in each course.

2. Adopt the belief that in-depth study of a limited number of important topics will have a more lasting effect than a course that tries to cover too many disconnected bits and pieces of information.

3. Design course outcomes to focus on results, with multiple indicators (assessments) of performance.

4. Design authentic assessments that will encourage originality, insightfulness, and problem-solving, along with master of important information.

5. Design courses to encourage active involvement.

6. Get students "doing" early in the course rather than studying all the principles and basics prior to performing.

There are several different patterns frequently used to organize programs. Some of those more commonly found in college programs are listed here.

Subject or Discipline-Centered - the curriculum is organized around separate, specific subjects or disciplines. For example anatomy (subject) or life sciences (discipline)

Broad Fields - the curriculum is organized to cut across subject lines and to emphasize relationships between subjects. It usually if organized into a 3 to 5 fields. For example, fields for technical career learning, professional and personal growth, supporting sciences, etc.

Spiral - the curriculum is organized around key concepts/skills that are introduced and revisited for deeper understanding as the learner moves through the program of study

Inquiry or Problem-Based - the curriculum is organized around a set of problems or areas of inquiry.

Experiential - learners engage is a set of experiences and then are helped to process and draw meaning from them.

All college programs leading to an Ontario College Credential are guided by standards that are expressed as learning outcomes. Students need to be able to "show what they know"-to demonstrate achievement of these learning outcomes. The curricula that we develop for these programs can be very different across different colleges but all must lead to the achievement of these program level learning outcomes. In this context, some of the concepts and principles linked to outcomes-based curriculum design can guide our work.

What is Outcomes-Based Education (OBE)?

The High Success Network (1992) defines Outcomes-Based Education as "...defining, organizing, focusing, and directing all aspects of a curriculum on the things we want all learners to demonstrate successfully when they complete the program".

Outcomes-based education is a student-centered, results oriented design premised on the belief that all individuals can learn. The strategy of OBE implies the following.

What students are to learn is clearly identified

Each student's progress is based on demonstrated achievement

Each student's learning needs are addressed through multiple instructional strategies and assessment tools

Each student is provided time and assistance to realize his/her potential.

- Boschee and Baron 1993

Some Key Concepts and Principles of Curriculum in an OBE Context

The focus is on results of learning. What learners are expected to learn is clearly identified, expressed as learning outcomes and known to all. Expectations are clear and public.

Curriculum and instruction maintains a clear focus on culminating outcomes-the performances learners must demonstrate to graduate. These are significant performances critical for success in life and work.

Design down (from the performances expected of graduates) and deliver up. Courses and learning experiences are focused and built to help learners achieve the learning outcomes.

Create learning opportunities to help different learners achieve learning outcomes. Learning experiences are activity-based and allow learners to apply and practise what they learn. There can be multiple paths to the achievement of the learning outcomes. OBE suggests that expanded opportunity and flexible paths promote success.

Assessment is standards-referenced and matches the learning outcomes. Learners show that they can perform the learning outcome. Learner progress and the earning of credit is based in a demonstration of the achievement of learning outcomes

This article provides an overview of Outcomes Based Education.

Algonquin College has published a Lifesaver on Program Standards that identifies principles that move us towards a standards-based college curriculum. You will find them on page 2.

The University of Guelph has published " A Guide to Developing and Assessing Learning Outcomes". This provides a clear description of how outcomes can be developed and used to frame curriculum decisions. It will be of particular interest to colleges offering degree level programs as it shows how the undergraduate degree level expectations (UDLE's) link to outcomes.

Those who adopt an inquiry approach to curriculum recognize that there is no single recipe for developing an effective curriculum. They realize that curricula are living, dynamic entities in constant flux. They use strategic questions and a variety of people and other data sources to collect information that will help them make curriculum decisions that are best for the learners, for the context and for the curriculum purpose. They investigate curriculum options then critically explore and assess their findings.

Here are examples of some questions that might be asked when developing or revising a program. These are simply examples-not a comprehensive list of questions to be asked.

Why is this program needed? What is the rationale for the program?

What are graduates of this program expected to know and to be able to do?

Are there standards or expectations from professional associations that need to be considered in this curriculum?

What credential is appropriate for this program?

How does this program relate to others in this college? Elsewhere?

Who are the learners likely to be attracted to this program?

What abilities will students entering the program need to be successful?

Who are the groups and individuals that should be consulted as we develop/revise this program?

Dee Fink is the author of several publications related to supporting "significant learning" and integrated curriculum design approaches. He has developed a Model of Integrated Course Design. This self-directed guide for designing courses for significant learning can be accessed from his web-site. A word of caution-the text is complete but some of the illustrations do not download well.

This site provides a short description of each step with some tips and tools that can be used when following the designing significant learning approach.

This article from Faculty Focus entitled Backward Design, Forward Progress, further explores curriculum design models associated with such educators as Dee Fink, Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe.

These sites from the University of Guelph provide an introduction to Universal Instructional Design (UID) and review of the seven principles of Universal Instructional Design. UID was originally developed to help develop instruction that would help learners with disabilities but is now recognized as a useful approach to support learning for all learners.

This website presents a scholarly view of curriculum concepts past and current.

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Whether we are developing new programs or courses or we are revising existing curriculum, the decisions we make can be informed and guided by applying concepts and principles of curriculum design. There are several concepts that can guide the development and review of all types of curricula at both the program and course level.

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How do we teach 21st century skills in classrooms?

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Over the past several decades, there has been increased demand for formal education to include the development of generic skills as well as traditional academic subjects, i.e., to include competenc...

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by Dianne Ferguson, Cleo Droege, Hafdís Guðjónsdóttir, Jackie Lester, Gwen Meyer, Ginevra Ralph, Nadia Sampson and Janet Williams

What do teachers think of when they hear the word curriculum? A book for students? A workbook? A teacher's manual? A list of subjects they have to teach? Many teachers think of curriculum in one of these ways. To them, curriculum refers to what educators teach, and that information is determined by someone else (or some group) and given to them in the form of books, texts, and lists.

The Role of the "Official" Curriculum

Many countries, states, and districts have identified what might be called an "official" or "standard" curriculum. Externally imposed standards of achievement or student outcomes have increasingly become one way to articulate this curriculum. We expect students to know and be able to do a set of tasks at various points in their schooling careers. This list of learning expectations is then translated into learning materials, such as textbooks, which may be accompanied by teachers' manuals that help both teachers and students meet the expectations. Some communities refer to these learning expectations as "curricular aims," "common curricular goals," "standards," and "benchmarks."

The underlying logic of curricular aims or approved standard curriculum, whether standards based or not, is that if a student learns this content, then the student is likely to be able to use it to become an active, contributing member of the community. Put another way, our communities need children, youth, and adults who have learned and can use these bits of information and demonstrate these skills.

Historically, this logic has served teachers and students reasonably well. Many students have learned much of what is contained in the official curriculum and textbooks-at least momentarily-and most do go on to construct active, contributing lives. We find ourselves troubled today, however, by the students who don't seem to fit into a prescribed curriculum, as well as by adults who report that they "never learned anything useful in school." Too many students promptly forget much of what they learned as they pursue their own interests and lives, cleanly decoupling school learning from life. School learning becomes a kind of job that must occupy the days of our children and youth, but has little relevance to the real learning that supports how they live their lives. Part of our purpose in this book is to make school learning more meaningful life learning.

The purpose of schooling is not to make every child learn everything that is in the official curriculum. It is to help students acquire the competence to be active, valued members of their communities. If learning all, or even most, of the official curriculum accomplishes this purpose, so much the better. But if learning the official curriculum does not seem to result in students' ability to use their learning, teachers must make different curricular decisions.

As our society changes from an industrial structure to one reliant on information technology, the logic of an official curriculum becomes less useful. Our emerging society is making far different demands. A schooling in facts and skills will be less useful than one that prepares adults to creatively seek out information, create new information, and respond to the problems and purposes of each day.

Standards and other forms of official curricula are, and will remain, useful to teachers as long as they are periodically reviewed and revised by our communities. We should remember, however, that such standards or shared learning aims are meant to guide how teachers work with learners toward those goals. By themselves, official curriculum standards, even when learned, cannot ensure that learners will be successful in achieving the goals set for them.

Curriculum as Decision Making

Given the nature of the official curriculum and the important purposes of schooling for children and youth, it is most powerful and effective if teachers think of curriculum as first and foremost about teacher decision making. Teachers must first decide how well the official curriculum or achievement standards are working to achieve educational outcomes for each student. They must then decide how to tweak official curriculum activities to incorporate other learning tasks so that individually tailored and effective learning experiences will occur for every student. Many teachers do this tweaking automatically, following some kind of instinct, but don't typically take the time either beforehand or afterward to reflect about why they are making these decisions.

In this chapter, we show how teachers can make those sorts of curricular plans and decisions more deliberately by using a deeper understanding of every student's needs and abilities. We begin by describing three broad types of curricular decision making that teachers use repeatedly. Examples from Ms. Clark's class will probably look familiar.

Three Decision-Making Situations

Teachers encounter three kinds of decision-making situations, based on the unique ways their students learn and use their learning. The kinds of curricular decisions teachers may need to make are slightly different for each one, but all students are likely to benefit, making their learning more productive and meaningful.

Enriching the Curriculum

Some students seem to float through whatever teachers are teaching, learning with apparent ease and interest at least most of the time. They generally do well enough on measures of acquisition and achievement. They function well in their lives outside school and as members of their peer group. These are the easy situations that make a teacher's job both comfortable and satisfying. But teachers are not always sure if such students remember any of the learning or if they just operate outside school on the basis of what they learn there instead of in school. Teachers may also wonder about their inability to excite any real passion about learning for some students. The students learn what is taught, and they meet criteria-they are the "good citizens." But teachers are concerned about transmitting their passion for learning to their students.

We think such students need teachers to find ways to enrich the curriculum for them, to help them identify and get excited about their learning and its usefulness in their lives. If there is a "goodness of fit" between what students are learning in school and the interests and demands of their lives outside school, their learning will be more meaningful and sensible to them. This kind of identification with what they are learning is the real stuff of both learning motivation and passion for learning. They might also learn more deeply. Most students need teachers to make enrichment decisions at least part of the time, as illustrated by the case of Samuel.

Samuel is an example of a student who generally finishes his assignments well ahead of the class. Often, Ms. Clark will announce to the class that Samuel is available to help and that he doesn't mind circling around the room. Most kids are receptive, and the teacher appreciates the support. But she questions if placing him in this role is fair and if it enhances his learning. Certainly it helps his social interaction with his peers. The class easily respects him as smart.

One day, Samuel had finished a guided reading activity on early civilizations 30 minutes ahead of everyone else. With his pleasant smile, he asked, "What shall I do now?" The rest of the class had the task in hand, and the teacher sensed that asking him to help others was avoiding the real issue. Samuel was entitled to a challenge. He needed to puzzle over tasks or activities the way his classmates did. She knew she was not meeting his needs. Grasping for an idea, she asked Samuel if he wanted to build a Sumerian water clock from some old directions she had found. His eyes lighted up and off he went. Since then, Samuel still helps Eli, Josh, and even Amanda, but at other times, the teacher offers Samuel-for his own learning-project ideas that she will never get around to using with the whole class.

Enhancing the Curriculum

There are students who may draw a teacher's special attention. It's not that they are not learning-it's that they learn so quickly that they have time to fool around and distract others. Such students may become bored and frustrated because they feel they waste time waiting for others, and they may gradually lose all interest. They drop out and stop trying. Their ability to meet the standards of achievement that teachers and schools have set quickly diminishes.

Other students may struggle with their learning. They take longer to figure something out and sometimes despair of ever succeeding. Some learning is more drudgery than discovery. Students feel little passion and, over time, little interest in learning. Struggling students may try to handle their frustration by making even less effort, arguing that they don't need to learn what teachers ask of them to be successful in their lives. Once a student has made this kind of decision to devalue school learning, it can be almost impossible to change the student's mind.

Both bored and struggling students need teachers to enhance the curriculum to respond not just to their abilities, but also to their learning styles, preferences, personal interests, and intelligences. Children may struggle, for example, because they are active, inductive learners who find rote, repetitive, deductive learning incomprehensible and boring. Facile learners often need more areas to learn and explore that build upon their interests and preferred ways of learning so that they can make learning alive in their lives.

All learners have various intelligences, or ways of receiving and expressing their knowledge. These intelligences can serve as a powerful springboard for creative curricular decision making and instructional planning. Howard Gardner (1993), the leading multiple intelligences theorist, has identified eight so far, and other educators, such as Goleman (1995), are defining more. Here are some of them:

Kinesthetic intelligence.

Musical intelligence.

Logical-mathematical intelligence.

Linguistic intelligence.

Interpersonal intelligence.

Intrapersonal intelligence.

Spatial intelligence.

Naturalistic intelligence.

Emotional intelligence.

All learners, including those with significantly different abilities, cultural backgrounds, and family lives, have both strengths and needs in each of these areas. Teachers need to draw upon and strengthen all of a student's intelligences. Students who discover new ways to apply and build on the range of skills that they already possess develop true self-esteem. Such meaningful experiences can sustain them during more challenging learning activities.

There are many ways to enhance the curriculum to respond to a student's intelligences, learning styles, and learning preferences. The demands of the task can be changed (e.g., give more or fewer examples, read more or fewer pages or books). Teachers might change the focus of the task. An example might be allowing students to learn a curricular goal-such as learn basic probability-by studying basketball teams and player statistics. Another example might be to learn about adjectives and adverbs by being the notetaker for a science experiment. Working on a curricular goal can occur within the context of an activity or lesson that might focus on a different curricular topic.

Teachers can enhance the options of what students produce. For one student, the assignment to write about his family might mean exploring his family tree and writing about distant relatives and the language they spoke in the old country. For another student, it might mean writing about her family's interest in hiking through the mountain forests, an interest the student passionately shares with her family. It might mean drawing, writing a song, or videotaping a play instead of actually writing out the assignment. In the end, the students will learn the official curricular aims, but their different ways of acquiring and using the knowledge are what make the curriculum useful in building the students' competence and value as members of their community.

Ms. Clark and her student Brandon both learned from the following experience. Brandon is constantly doodling or drawing when expected to work independently. During a reading fluency activity, which required him to choose a story, listen to a tape, reread the passage to the teacher, then produce a written retell, he consistently chose bug stories. After Brandon had practiced his reading, the teacher was later exasperated to see him drawing again instead of working on his writing assignment. She looked at his paper and discovered an intricate picture map depicting each aspect of the original story. He glanced at her sheepishly as she stood beside him. She encouraged him to tell her about his drawing. He explained the life cycle of a moth in detail. She asked him to complete the drawing, giving him permission to retell his selections in the picture map format, which he is most comfortable with. His confidence in his ability to retell his selections soared. It had taken her a moment to realize that Brandon was exhibiting a benchmark skill in his preferred alternative style.

Overlapping and Embedding the Curriculum

Teachers may have students whose abilities make it impossible for them to learn in some areas. Barriers to learning can be physical; medical; emotional; or a reflection of a student's history, culture, or personality. In these types of situations, teachers have to be guided directly by the schooling outcomes and the student's strengths to align the student's learning needs more closely with the official curriculum. Of course, a number of these students can learn many, even all, parts of the official curriculum, especially when teachers are creative and flexible. Others, like Susannah in the following narrative, will work on communication objectives, which are tied to the state benchmarks for communication, during the class's literacy learning activities that are aligned with another part of the official curriculum.

Using the official curriculum as the only teaching reference may not allow teachers to be as confident that their teaching is helping a student become a more active and contributing member of the community. Teachers must select those parts of the curriculum that directly build students' competence in the activities of real life, both inside and outside school.

Susannah's teachers weren't sure if Susannah would be able to participate in a 6th grade literature circle. Literature circles require five students to choose a book, plan the reading calendar, set up a schedule for group members to take a role for participation within the group, and discuss the book. They later answer questions about the book during a group presentation. The roles include discussion director, literary luminary, illustrator, connector, and summarizer. Some teachers add other roles.

Ms. Jackson, the speech-language specialist, was focusing on Susannah's communication goals: to articulate and comprehend functional vocabulary and to follow directions. Ms. Clark offered the class a choice of six books to vote on. Susannah voted for Woodsong because she liked the picture of dogs on the cover.

Groups began to form, and Susannah joined a group with four other students interested in Woodsong. Ms. Jackson monitored the group as the students chose roles. Susannah began with the role of Word Wizard, which required her to choose vocabulary words from the book's first chapter. The speech-language specialist, Ms. Jackson, helped Susannah choose words containing sounds that they were practicing. Susannah wrote her word list. The group went to the two comfortable couches in the back of the room to listen to the first chapter on tape as they followed along in their books. To the teachers' delight, Susannah participated in the group activity while also working on her communication goals. For Susannah, curricular decisions involved finding ways to embed or overlap her communication objectives in activities like literature circles in which other students' objectives are focused more on reading.

* * *

In the following chapters, we present strategies to help teachers make these three kinds of curricular decisions and assess their students' outcomes from a more individual and personalized perspective. Here is what we present:

Ways to get to know your students' and their families' interests and learning priorities more personally, deeply, and quickly than is often typical. Knowing students well helps teachers feel confident that students understand the relevancy of what they are learning to their real-life activities. (See Chapters 2 and 3.)

Examples of how to build curriculum plans using an activity-based assessment. (See Chapters 3 and 4.)

Processes and tools to identify, discuss, and document student learning gains that are seen in the classroom but don't necessarily appear in state benchmark exams. Such gains are valuable to both the student and the student's family. (See Chapters 5 and 6.)

Strategies to elicit validating information from families on how their children are using their new learning and skills in the community activities that they identified earlier as high priority. (See Chapter 3.)

Gardner, H. (1993). Multiple intelligences: The theory in practice. New York: BasicBooks.

Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books.

For Further Reading

If you are interested in learning more about differentiated instruction, you may want to take a look at the work of Tomlinson (1996, 1997a, 1997b, 1999). The book edited by Pugach and Warger (1996) and the book edited by Falvey (1995) discuss the history of general and special education reforms and how the two movements can unite through curriculum design. The books by Armstrong (1994a, 1994b, 1998) use Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences to discuss the inner gifts and genius in all students, especially students labeled with disabilities. The resources by Chard (1998a, 1998b) offer educators an introduction to and numerous examples of the "project approach."

Armstrong, T. (1994a). Multiple intelligences: Seven ways to approach curriculum. Educational Leadership, 52(3), 26-28.

Armstrong, T. (1994b). Multiple intelligences in the classroom. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Armstrong, T. (1998). Awakening genius in the classroom. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Chard, S. C. (1998a). The project approach: Developing the basic framework: Practical guide 1. New York: Scholastic.

Chard, S. C. (1998b). The project approach: Developing curriculum with children: Practical guide 2. New York: Scholastic.

Falvey, M. A. (Ed.). (1995). Inclusive and heterogeneous schooling: Assessment, curriculum, and instruction. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Publishing.

Pugach, M. C., & Warger, C. L. (Eds.). (1996). Curriculum trends, special education, and reform: Refocusing the conversation. New York: Teachers College Press.

Tomlinson, C. A. (Developer). (1996). Differentiating instruction for mixed-ability classrooms: An ASCD professional inquiry kit. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Tomlinson, C. A. (Educational Consultant). (1997a). Differentiating instruction. tape 1: Creating multiple paths for learning with facilitator's guide [Videotape]. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Tomlinson, C. A. (Educational Consultant). (1997b). Differentiating instruction. Tape 2: Instructional and management strategies [Videotape]. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Tomlinson, C. A. (1999). The differentiated classroom: Responding to the needs of all learners. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

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by Dianne Ferguson, Cleo Droege, Hafdís Guðjónsdóttir, Jackie Lester, Gwen Meyer, Ginevra Ralph, Nadia Sampson and Janet Williams What do teachers think of when they hear the word curriculum? A book for students? A workbook? A teacher's manual? A list of subjects they have to teach?

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What the Heck Is Inquiry-Based Learning?

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Teachers use inquiry-based learning to combat the “dunno” -- a chronic problem in student engagement. Check out these four steps for creating inquiry-based curriculum.

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by Dianne Ferguson, Cleo Droege, Hafdís Guðjónsdóttir, Jackie Lester, Gwen Meyer, Ginevra Ralph, Nadia Sampson and Janet Williams

What do teachers think of when they hear the word curriculum? A book for students? A workbook? A teacher's manual? A list of subjects they have to teach? Many teachers think of curriculum in one of these ways. To them, curriculum refers to what educators teach, and that information is determined by someone else (or some group) and given to them in the form of books, texts, and lists.

The Role of the "Official" Curriculum

Many countries, states, and districts have identified what might be called an "official" or "standard" curriculum. Externally imposed standards of achievement or student outcomes have increasingly become one way to articulate this curriculum. We expect students to know and be able to do a set of tasks at various points in their schooling careers. This list of learning expectations is then translated into learning materials, such as textbooks, which may be accompanied by teachers' manuals that help both teachers and students meet the expectations. Some communities refer to these learning expectations as "curricular aims," "common curricular goals," "standards," and "benchmarks."

The underlying logic of curricular aims or approved standard curriculum, whether standards based or not, is that if a student learns this content, then the student is likely to be able to use it to become an active, contributing member of the community. Put another way, our communities need children, youth, and adults who have learned and can use these bits of information and demonstrate these skills.

Historically, this logic has served teachers and students reasonably well. Many students have learned much of what is contained in the official curriculum and textbooks-at least momentarily-and most do go on to construct active, contributing lives. We find ourselves troubled today, however, by the students who don't seem to fit into a prescribed curriculum, as well as by adults who report that they "never learned anything useful in school." Too many students promptly forget much of what they learned as they pursue their own interests and lives, cleanly decoupling school learning from life. School learning becomes a kind of job that must occupy the days of our children and youth, but has little relevance to the real learning that supports how they live their lives. Part of our purpose in this book is to make school learning more meaningful life learning.

The purpose of schooling is not to make every child learn everything that is in the official curriculum. It is to help students acquire the competence to be active, valued members of their communities. If learning all, or even most, of the official curriculum accomplishes this purpose, so much the better. But if learning the official curriculum does not seem to result in students' ability to use their learning, teachers must make different curricular decisions.

As our society changes from an industrial structure to one reliant on information technology, the logic of an official curriculum becomes less useful. Our emerging society is making far different demands. A schooling in facts and skills will be less useful than one that prepares adults to creatively seek out information, create new information, and respond to the problems and purposes of each day.

Standards and other forms of official curricula are, and will remain, useful to teachers as long as they are periodically reviewed and revised by our communities. We should remember, however, that such standards or shared learning aims are meant to guide how teachers work with learners toward those goals. By themselves, official curriculum standards, even when learned, cannot ensure that learners will be successful in achieving the goals set for them.

Curriculum as Decision Making

Given the nature of the official curriculum and the important purposes of schooling for children and youth, it is most powerful and effective if teachers think of curriculum as first and foremost about teacher decision making. Teachers must first decide how well the official curriculum or achievement standards are working to achieve educational outcomes for each student. They must then decide how to tweak official curriculum activities to incorporate other learning tasks so that individually tailored and effective learning experiences will occur for every student. Many teachers do this tweaking automatically, following some kind of instinct, but don't typically take the time either beforehand or afterward to reflect about why they are making these decisions.

In this chapter, we show how teachers can make those sorts of curricular plans and decisions more deliberately by using a deeper understanding of every student's needs and abilities. We begin by describing three broad types of curricular decision making that teachers use repeatedly. Examples from Ms. Clark's class will probably look familiar.

Three Decision-Making Situations

Teachers encounter three kinds of decision-making situations, based on the unique ways their students learn and use their learning. The kinds of curricular decisions teachers may need to make are slightly different for each one, but all students are likely to benefit, making their learning more productive and meaningful.

Enriching the Curriculum

Some students seem to float through whatever teachers are teaching, learning with apparent ease and interest at least most of the time. They generally do well enough on measures of acquisition and achievement. They function well in their lives outside school and as members of their peer group. These are the easy situations that make a teacher's job both comfortable and satisfying. But teachers are not always sure if such students remember any of the learning or if they just operate outside school on the basis of what they learn there instead of in school. Teachers may also wonder about their inability to excite any real passion about learning for some students. The students learn what is taught, and they meet criteria-they are the "good citizens." But teachers are concerned about transmitting their passion for learning to their students.

We think such students need teachers to find ways to enrich the curriculum for them, to help them identify and get excited about their learning and its usefulness in their lives. If there is a "goodness of fit" between what students are learning in school and the interests and demands of their lives outside school, their learning will be more meaningful and sensible to them. This kind of identification with what they are learning is the real stuff of both learning motivation and passion for learning. They might also learn more deeply. Most students need teachers to make enrichment decisions at least part of the time, as illustrated by the case of Samuel.

Samuel is an example of a student who generally finishes his assignments well ahead of the class. Often, Ms. Clark will announce to the class that Samuel is available to help and that he doesn't mind circling around the room. Most kids are receptive, and the teacher appreciates the support. But she questions if placing him in this role is fair and if it enhances his learning. Certainly it helps his social interaction with his peers. The class easily respects him as smart.

One day, Samuel had finished a guided reading activity on early civilizations 30 minutes ahead of everyone else. With his pleasant smile, he asked, "What shall I do now?" The rest of the class had the task in hand, and the teacher sensed that asking him to help others was avoiding the real issue. Samuel was entitled to a challenge. He needed to puzzle over tasks or activities the way his classmates did. She knew she was not meeting his needs. Grasping for an idea, she asked Samuel if he wanted to build a Sumerian water clock from some old directions she had found. His eyes lighted up and off he went. Since then, Samuel still helps Eli, Josh, and even Amanda, but at other times, the teacher offers Samuel-for his own learning-project ideas that she will never get around to using with the whole class.

Enhancing the Curriculum

There are students who may draw a teacher's special attention. It's not that they are not learning-it's that they learn so quickly that they have time to fool around and distract others. Such students may become bored and frustrated because they feel they waste time waiting for others, and they may gradually lose all interest. They drop out and stop trying. Their ability to meet the standards of achievement that teachers and schools have set quickly diminishes.

Other students may struggle with their learning. They take longer to figure something out and sometimes despair of ever succeeding. Some learning is more drudgery than discovery. Students feel little passion and, over time, little interest in learning. Struggling students may try to handle their frustration by making even less effort, arguing that they don't need to learn what teachers ask of them to be successful in their lives. Once a student has made this kind of decision to devalue school learning, it can be almost impossible to change the student's mind.

Both bored and struggling students need teachers to enhance the curriculum to respond not just to their abilities, but also to their learning styles, preferences, personal interests, and intelligences. Children may struggle, for example, because they are active, inductive learners who find rote, repetitive, deductive learning incomprehensible and boring. Facile learners often need more areas to learn and explore that build upon their interests and preferred ways of learning so that they can make learning alive in their lives.

All learners have various intelligences, or ways of receiving and expressing their knowledge. These intelligences can serve as a powerful springboard for creative curricular decision making and instructional planning. Howard Gardner (1993), the leading multiple intelligences theorist, has identified eight so far, and other educators, such as Goleman (1995), are defining more. Here are some of them:

Kinesthetic intelligence.

Musical intelligence.

Logical-mathematical intelligence.

Linguistic intelligence.

Interpersonal intelligence.

Intrapersonal intelligence.

Spatial intelligence.

Naturalistic intelligence.

Emotional intelligence.

All learners, including those with significantly different abilities, cultural backgrounds, and family lives, have both strengths and needs in each of these areas. Teachers need to draw upon and strengthen all of a student's intelligences. Students who discover new ways to apply and build on the range of skills that they already possess develop true self-esteem. Such meaningful experiences can sustain them during more challenging learning activities.

There are many ways to enhance the curriculum to respond to a student's intelligences, learning styles, and learning preferences. The demands of the task can be changed (e.g., give more or fewer examples, read more or fewer pages or books). Teachers might change the focus of the task. An example might be allowing students to learn a curricular goal-such as learn basic probability-by studying basketball teams and player statistics. Another example might be to learn about adjectives and adverbs by being the notetaker for a science experiment. Working on a curricular goal can occur within the context of an activity or lesson that might focus on a different curricular topic.

Teachers can enhance the options of what students produce. For one student, the assignment to write about his family might mean exploring his family tree and writing about distant relatives and the language they spoke in the old country. For another student, it might mean writing about her family's interest in hiking through the mountain forests, an interest the student passionately shares with her family. It might mean drawing, writing a song, or videotaping a play instead of actually writing out the assignment. In the end, the students will learn the official curricular aims, but their different ways of acquiring and using the knowledge are what make the curriculum useful in building the students' competence and value as members of their community.

Ms. Clark and her student Brandon both learned from the following experience. Brandon is constantly doodling or drawing when expected to work independently. During a reading fluency activity, which required him to choose a story, listen to a tape, reread the passage to the teacher, then produce a written retell, he consistently chose bug stories. After Brandon had practiced his reading, the teacher was later exasperated to see him drawing again instead of working on his writing assignment. She looked at his paper and discovered an intricate picture map depicting each aspect of the original story. He glanced at her sheepishly as she stood beside him. She encouraged him to tell her about his drawing. He explained the life cycle of a moth in detail. She asked him to complete the drawing, giving him permission to retell his selections in the picture map format, which he is most comfortable with. His confidence in his ability to retell his selections soared. It had taken her a moment to realize that Brandon was exhibiting a benchmark skill in his preferred alternative style.

Overlapping and Embedding the Curriculum

Teachers may have students whose abilities make it impossible for them to learn in some areas. Barriers to learning can be physical; medical; emotional; or a reflection of a student's history, culture, or personality. In these types of situations, teachers have to be guided directly by the schooling outcomes and the student's strengths to align the student's learning needs more closely with the official curriculum. Of course, a number of these students can learn many, even all, parts of the official curriculum, especially when teachers are creative and flexible. Others, like Susannah in the following narrative, will work on communication objectives, which are tied to the state benchmarks for communication, during the class's literacy learning activities that are aligned with another part of the official curriculum.

Using the official curriculum as the only teaching reference may not allow teachers to be as confident that their teaching is helping a student become a more active and contributing member of the community. Teachers must select those parts of the curriculum that directly build students' competence in the activities of real life, both inside and outside school.

Susannah's teachers weren't sure if Susannah would be able to participate in a 6th grade literature circle. Literature circles require five students to choose a book, plan the reading calendar, set up a schedule for group members to take a role for participation within the group, and discuss the book. They later answer questions about the book during a group presentation. The roles include discussion director, literary luminary, illustrator, connector, and summarizer. Some teachers add other roles.

Ms. Jackson, the speech-language specialist, was focusing on Susannah's communication goals: to articulate and comprehend functional vocabulary and to follow directions. Ms. Clark offered the class a choice of six books to vote on. Susannah voted for Woodsong because she liked the picture of dogs on the cover.

Groups began to form, and Susannah joined a group with four other students interested in Woodsong. Ms. Jackson monitored the group as the students chose roles. Susannah began with the role of Word Wizard, which required her to choose vocabulary words from the book's first chapter. The speech-language specialist, Ms. Jackson, helped Susannah choose words containing sounds that they were practicing. Susannah wrote her word list. The group went to the two comfortable couches in the back of the room to listen to the first chapter on tape as they followed along in their books. To the teachers' delight, Susannah participated in the group activity while also working on her communication goals. For Susannah, curricular decisions involved finding ways to embed or overlap her communication objectives in activities like literature circles in which other students' objectives are focused more on reading.

* * *

In the following chapters, we present strategies to help teachers make these three kinds of curricular decisions and assess their students' outcomes from a more individual and personalized perspective. Here is what we present:

Ways to get to know your students' and their families' interests and learning priorities more personally, deeply, and quickly than is often typical. Knowing students well helps teachers feel confident that students understand the relevancy of what they are learning to their real-life activities. (See Chapters 2 and 3.)

Examples of how to build curriculum plans using an activity-based assessment. (See Chapters 3 and 4.)

Processes and tools to identify, discuss, and document student learning gains that are seen in the classroom but don't necessarily appear in state benchmark exams. Such gains are valuable to both the student and the student's family. (See Chapters 5 and 6.)

Strategies to elicit validating information from families on how their children are using their new learning and skills in the community activities that they identified earlier as high priority. (See Chapter 3.)

Gardner, H. (1993). Multiple intelligences: The theory in practice. New York: BasicBooks.

Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books.

For Further Reading

If you are interested in learning more about differentiated instruction, you may want to take a look at the work of Tomlinson (1996, 1997a, 1997b, 1999). The book edited by Pugach and Warger (1996) and the book edited by Falvey (1995) discuss the history of general and special education reforms and how the two movements can unite through curriculum design. The books by Armstrong (1994a, 1994b, 1998) use Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences to discuss the inner gifts and genius in all students, especially students labeled with disabilities. The resources by Chard (1998a, 1998b) offer educators an introduction to and numerous examples of the "project approach."

Armstrong, T. (1994a). Multiple intelligences: Seven ways to approach curriculum. Educational Leadership, 52(3), 26-28.

Armstrong, T. (1994b). Multiple intelligences in the classroom. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Armstrong, T. (1998). Awakening genius in the classroom. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Chard, S. C. (1998a). The project approach: Developing the basic framework: Practical guide 1. New York: Scholastic.

Chard, S. C. (1998b). The project approach: Developing curriculum with children: Practical guide 2. New York: Scholastic.

Falvey, M. A. (Ed.). (1995). Inclusive and heterogeneous schooling: Assessment, curriculum, and instruction. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Publishing.

Pugach, M. C., & Warger, C. L. (Eds.). (1996). Curriculum trends, special education, and reform: Refocusing the conversation. New York: Teachers College Press.

Tomlinson, C. A. (Developer). (1996). Differentiating instruction for mixed-ability classrooms: An ASCD professional inquiry kit. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Tomlinson, C. A. (Educational Consultant). (1997a). Differentiating instruction. tape 1: Creating multiple paths for learning with facilitator's guide [Videotape]. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Tomlinson, C. A. (Educational Consultant). (1997b). Differentiating instruction. Tape 2: Instructional and management strategies [Videotape]. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Tomlinson, C. A. (1999). The differentiated classroom: Responding to the needs of all learners. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

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by Dianne Ferguson, Cleo Droege, Hafdís Guðjónsdóttir, Jackie Lester, Gwen Meyer, Ginevra Ralph, Nadia Sampson and Janet Williams What do teachers think of when they hear the word curriculum? A book for students? A workbook? A teacher's manual? A list of subjects they have to teach?

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Professor Fernando Reimers provides tips on raising children to be global citizens.

This article originally appeared on the Ivy Prep Blog on August 6, 2014.

How can we educate our children to be citizens of the world? This question is one that parents and educators are considering, particularly this summer amid such tumultuous times in our country and the world-at-large.

Every day we and our children have real-time opportunities to share our thinking while engaging with one another - whether it's how to welcome new neighbors on the block, explain our attitudes toward immigration policies debated in Congress, or provide background and context to our children as a 24/7 news cycle presents nonstop updates and images of global conflicts.

Harvard Graduate School of Education Professor Fernando Reimers recently spoke about global education to HGSE alumni in New York. Reimers, who is also director of the International Education Policy Program at HGSE, knows about the nuts and bolts of educating kids. He is a parent and a professor; he also developed the World Course (global studies) curriculum for the Avenues School, a private school in New York City devoted to making its students global-minded citizens of the world.

Because we live in such an interdependent and connected world, global curricula are now being designed and evaluated to ensure that they are. This is a welcome development because our children need knowledge and flexible, adaptive tools to become successful in an interconnected society. Since learning happens through both formal pedagogy and outside of the classroom, parents and teachers alike can foster global awareness in meaningful ways.

Read more on the Ivy Prep Blog.

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Professor Fernando Reimers provides tips on raising children to be global citizens. This article originally appeared on the Ivy Prep Blog on August 6, 2014. How can we educate our children to be citizens of the world? This question is one that parents and educators are considering, particularly this summer amid such tumultuous times in our country and the world-at-large.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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GALT, Calif. - Sixth-grader Audrianna Lesieur had just finished arranging 23 words on scraps of paper into five columns when Val Seamons appeared at her side. "Why is this over here?" the veteran teacher asked. Audrianna scooped up the word in question and anxiously scanned the columns for its proper home. "Where's your 'Confidence' strength?" Seamons asked. "Tell me why it's here." As Audrianna lifted her bowed head, her classmate William Maestas chimed in, "You can do it!" With that, she ably defended her original choice, and Seamons bustled down the table to the next student.

Terms like "Caring" and "Competing," as well as "Confidence," are very familiar to students at Lake Canyon Elementary School. They're among the 10 "talent themes," or strengths, used to underpin learning in the school district here. Starting in preschool, teachers try to spot students' natural talents; by kindergarten, each child's top strengths appear on a "personalized learning plan," a new type of report card. Second-graders sing a rendition of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" that replaces "there was a cow" with "there was 'Dependability.' " And in fourth grade, students at all five of Galt's public elementary schools take an online quiz known as a "strengths assessment" in which their sense of how much they relate to certain statements - such as, "For me, everything has to be planned" - helps identify their strengths.

At first glance this strength-based approach seems like the educational equivalent of kitsch, a bit fringe and hardly necessary. Certainly it's not yet in widespread use. But Karen Schauer, the superintendent of Galt Joint Union Elementary School District (who lists her top strengths in her email signature) said that in her nearly 40 years as an educator, "It's just one of the most powerful things I've ever been a part of." Jenifer Fox - who wrote the book "Your Child's Strengths" and in 2014 helped create The Delta School in Wilson, Arkansas, which uses the strengths approach - went further, calling it "the magic bullet."

But what is it, exactly?

Though grounded in complex positive psychology research, the strength-based approach boils down to a simple rule: Focus on what students do well. It feels natural to do the opposite, because pulling up areas of weakness can seem like the best way to help children grow, says Lea Waters, a psychology professor at the University of Melbourne, in Australia, and the author of a book called "The Strength Switch." Yet focusing on the traits and skills kids don't have can lead them to become disengaged, Waters says, while focusing on strengths produces greater levels of happiness and engagement at school and higher levels of academic achievement.

"It's just one of the most powerful things I've ever been a part of."

Karen Schauer, superintendent, Galt Joint Union Elementary School District

The first step, she says, is helping students learn what strengths are and figure out which ones they display most. Then teachers can provide opportunities to use those talents and, theoretically, even allow students' strengths to drive some choices of curricular content.

It's different from "character education," a method focused on instilling various traits like grit and perseverance, because a strength-based approach focuses on what children already have going for them. And while it could be considered a form of personalized learning, most schools experimenting with the strengths approach don't yet allow students' passions to influence their academic subject matter or learning pace. Instead, students' strengths tend to drive their choices for extracurricular activities or during more open-ended portions of the school day like " genius hour. "

Related: The difference between being eligible for college and ready for college

Most teachers who try the approach start by giving a quiz. The one Galt's fourth-graders take comes from the CliftonStrengths Youth Explorer, a framework developed and sold by Gallup, the 82-year-old management consulting company best known for its public opinion polling. (Gallup spun off the youth version from a talent test used with adults in corporate settings.) Waters uses a different list of strengths, called Values in Action, when working with educators in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the U.S. Others use strength systems designed by the British Centre of Applied Positive Psychology or by Thrively, a California-based startup.

While the number of schools using the method isn't tallied anywhere, the number of tests taken could serve as a loose proxy for interest in it. Jon Burt, who heads Gallup's K-12 education consulting arm, said that each year over 1 million students in the U.S. take one of that company's quizzes. Jillian Coppley Darwish, president of Mayerson Academy, a nonprofit that advises educators, said that her organization has introduced the Values in Action framework to nearly 70 schools in the U.S., and Thrively's president, Alex Cory, said that about 44,000 teachers across the 50 states have signed up for Thrively accounts.

Still, there's a difference between interest and implementation. "What people struggle with is how to make it come alive in schools," said Fox. Waters agrees, saying that most schools don't really move past the assessment.

Not so in Galt. There, Meghan McFadyen asks kids in her mixed fourth- and fifth-grade classroom who have "Presence" among their top strengths to help peers, because in theory no performance anxiety will block them from taking leadership positions. And Seamons weaves strengths into the sixth-grade curriculum. She teaches about Nancy Wake, a member of the French Resistance in World War II who evaded the Nazis, sometimes by parachute. Seamons said her students said, "Oh man, she definitely, definitely was an 'Achiever.' "

She also uses strengths language as a form of discipline. Instead of chastising a student doing group work for being "too bossy," for instance, she will suggest dialing back on "Achieving," the drive to accomplish. Undesirable behavior still gets corrected, but by pointing out a surplus of something good, not a deficiency.

Monica Garcia, a parent, said her kindergartner recently climbed up on the kitchen counter to get a snack. Before learning about strengths, she said, she would have shouted at the child for being careless. Instead, she said, "Wow. Okay, great, I'm glad you're being independent, however, your safety is my concern."

The strength-based approach can be especially important for students with special needs, said Marian Hamrick, a teacher at Galt's Fairsite Preschool who treats her autistic students' physical lashing out as a laudable ambition to communicate.

Mayerson Academy's Darwish said it's not just semantics: "We know that people respond infinitely better - both in terms of their continued engagement and motivation, and ultimately their behavior change - when they are approached with a positive lens."

Administrators in Galt say recent test results support that notion. From 2014-15 to 2016-17, the percentage of the district's students meeting or exceeding standards rose from 37 to 43.1 in English language arts and from 25 to 35.9 in math. Schauer notes that in the last two years, course failures and suspensions have decreased while attendance and self-reported engagement levels have increased. That said, introducing the strength-based approach is only one of several changes the district has made in recent years.
Is strength-based instruction feasible in most schools?
Private schools like Arkansas' Delta School and New York City's Riverdale Country School (which has a phone app students can use to access a strengths list) are likely to have the resources to explore promising trends like this. How did Galt end up at the forefront of strength-based instruction?

The Galt district in Sacramento County serves 3,600 elementary-age students, approximately 60 percent of whom are Hispanic or Latino. Over 20 percent aren't fluent in English, and about half qualify for the federal free or reduced-price meal program. An area joke calls Galt "the lowest place in California," referring to its 47 feet of elevation above sea level while also taking a jab at its people's hardship. After the Great Recession that began in December 2007, the community's unemployment rate skyrocketed. Folks moved away, and the district had to close an elementary school. Schauer said her team began strengths work with a small group of adults as they frantically looked for grants. When the district won federal Race to the Top funding in 2012, Schauer expanded the strengths program. But she said it isn't expensive.

"We know that people respond infinitely better - both in terms of their continued engagement and motivation, and ultimately their behavior change - when they are approached with a positive lens."

Jillian Coppley Darwish, president, Mayerson Academy

That depends. Thrively offers a free version for individual teachers that includes access to its test, but charges $10,000 for its District Pro package, which covers more students and adds more video content. Gallup works on a similar model, Burt said, charging different amounts for different levels of hand-holding and access. Mayerson Academy does too, but its work is frequently supported by grants.

Jennifer Collier, who champions strength-based learning in Galt as the district's extended learning supervisor, says ideally there would be a Gallup-trained strengths coach like her at each school.

Expense is not the only hurdle. "You have to actually have a culture of strengths built into the school," Waters said, claiming that her research shows that you can't just teach strengths to students; the adults in the schools must also learn the method and model it. In Galt, strength terms drip from the walls, printed on flags and on signs pinned to bulletin boards. Most teachers rattle off their top strengths in conversation, having taken the adult version of the quiz either during a 2013 districtwide training or in one of the seminars provided for parents, bus drivers, custodians, food services staff and others.

Not everyone in Galt has fully embraced the approach, however. Some educators pushed back, viewing it as one more fad sucking time away from their core mission. Others try to implement it, but fall short. Recently, one teacher snarkily told a student, "Your strength is impulsiveness."

Full implementation has been elusive in other ways as well. Substitute teachers haven't been trained in the approach. And Lori Biser, the middle school's counselor, said that while she'd like to incorporate strengths into conversations about course choices and career paths (a best practice highlighted in a case study published in The Journal of Positive Psychology), she can't remember them for 900 students and is loath to consult her computer during a counseling session.

And there are reasons to question the method's effectiveness. The studies Waters cites as evidence of the approach's ability to increase happiness and engagement involved several positive psychology interventions, not just strengths work, and the support for claims of heightened academic achievement largely involve more traditional character education, not the strength-based approach used in Galt. Gallup's marketing materials offer statistics linking positivity to increased engagement by students, but the company's numbers don't offer evidence that the strength-based approach itself - and not just upbeat and encouraging teachers - makes the difference.

Each year over 1 million students in the U.S. take one of Gallup's strength-based quizzes, according to the company.

There's another concern: that a strengths lens, implemented poorly, could end up pigeonholing kids by leaving adults thinking, "This one's the kind one; this one's the brave one," as Waters said.

Then there's the fear that students who are taught they have natural strengths and weaknesses won't internalize the idea that they can improve and develop new talents with hard work.
Related: Growth mindset guru Carol Dweck says teachers and parents often use her research incorrectly
To prevent that, Waters said educators must make sure to convey that some strengths may "be more prominent in one child than another," but that all children have all the strengths.

Val Seamons certainly does that. When she asked students to indicate which strength best represents them by moving to stand near posted signs, Maria Warda looked uncertain. "Sometimes I'm not, but sometimes I am," the sixth-grader explained. Nodding knowingly, Seamons replied: "So maybe you have the ability, but you don't always practice it? Well that's the case with everybody." After a pause she added, "And just because you have a weakness in something doesn't mean you don't have the ability to overcome that."

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our newsletter.

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Is strength-based learning a "magic bullet?" - The Hechinger Report

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GALT, Calif. - Sixth-grader Audrianna Lesieur had just finished arranging 23 words on scraps of paper into five columns when Val Seamons appeared at her side. "Why is this over here?" the veteran teacher asked. Audrianna scooped up the word in question and anxiously scanned the columns for its proper home.

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INDEPENDENT SCHOOL

Spring 2008

Why It's Hard to Beat, But Also Hard to Find

By Alfie Kohn

RELATED PUBLICATIONS:
* "What to Look for in a Classroom" (table)
* "A Dozen Basic Guidelines for Educators" (list)
* "The Trouble with Pure Freedom" (lecture)

If progressive education doesn't lend itself to a single fixed definition, that seems fitting in light of its reputation for resisting conformity and standardization. Any two educators who describe themselves as sympathetic to this tradition may well see it differently, or at least disagree about which features are the most important.

Talk to enough progressive educators, in fact, and you'll begin to notice certain paradoxes: Some people focus on the unique needs of individual students, while others invoke the importance of a community of learners; some describe learning as a process, more journey than destination, while others believe that tasks should result in authentic products that can be shared.[1]
What It Is
Despite such variations, there are enough elements on which most of us can agree so that a common core of progressive education emerges, however hazily. And it really does make sense to call it a tradition, as I did a moment ago. Ironically, what we usually call "traditional" education, in contrast to the progressive approach, has less claim to that adjective - because of how, and how recently, it has developed. As Jim Nehring at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell observed, "Progressive schools are the legacy of a long and proud tradition of thoughtful school practice stretching back for centuries" - including hands-on learning, multiage classrooms, and mentor-apprentice relationships - while what we generally refer to as traditional schooling "is largely the result of outdated policy changes that have calcified into conventions."[2](Nevertheless, I'll use the conventional nomenclature in this article to avoid confusion.)

It's not all or nothing, to be sure. I don't think I've ever seen a school - even one with scripted instruction, uniforms, and rows of desks bolted to the floor - that has completely escaped the influence of progressive ideas. Nor have I seen a school that's progressive in every detail. Still, schools can be characterized according to how closely they reflect a commitment to values such as these:

Attending to the whole child: Progressive educators are concerned with helping children become not only good learners but also good people. Schooling isn't seen as being about just academics, nor is intellectual growth limited to verbal and mathematical proficiencies.

Community: Learning isn't something that happens to individual children - separate selves at separate desks. Children learn with and from one another in a caring community, and that's true of moral as well as academic learning. Interdependence counts at least as much as independence, so it follows that practices that pit students against one another in some kind of competition, thereby undermining a feeling of community, are deliberately avoided.

Collaboration: Progressive schools are characterized by what I like to call a "working with" rather than a "doing to" model. In place of rewards for complying with the adults' expectations, or punitive consequences for failing to do so, there's more of an emphasis on collaborative problem-solving - and, for that matter, less focus on behaviors than on underlying motives, values, and reasons.

Social justice: A sense of community and responsibility for others isn't confined to the classroom; indeed, students are helped to locate themselves in widening circles of care that extend beyond self, beyond friends, beyond their own ethnic group, and beyond their own country. Opportunities are offered not only to learn about, but also to put into action, a commitment to diversity and to improving the lives of others.

Intrinsic motivation: When considering (or reconsidering) educational policies and practices, the first question that progressive educators are likely to ask is, "What's the effect on students' interest in learning, their desire to continue reading, thinking, and questioning?" This deceptively simple test helps to determine what students will and won't be asked to do. Thus, conventional practices, including homework, grades, and tests, prove difficult to justify for anyone who is serious about promoting long-term dispositions rather than just improving short-term skills.

Deep understanding: As the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead declared long ago, "A merely well-informed man is the most useless bore on God's earth." Facts and skills do matter, but only in a context and for a purpose. That's why progressive education tends to be organized around problems, projects, and questions - rather than around lists of facts, skills, and separate disciplines. The teaching is typically interdisciplinary, the assessment rarely focuses on rote memorization, and excellence isn't confused with "rigor." The point is not merely to challenge students - after all, harder is not necessarily better - but to invite them to think deeply about issues that matter and help them understand ideas from the inside out.

Active learning: In progressive schools, students play a vital role in helping to design the curriculum, formulate the questions, seek out (and create) answers, think through possibilities, and evaluate how successful they - and their teachers - have been. Their active participation in every stage of the process is consistent with the overwhelming consensus of experts that learning is a matter of constructing ideas rather than passively absorbing information or practicing skills.

Taking kids seriously: In traditional schooling, as John Dewey once remarked, "the center of gravity is outside the child": he or she is expected to adjust to the school's rules and curriculum. Progressive educators take their cue from the children - and are particularly attentive to differences among them. (Each student is unique, so a single set of policies, expectations, or assignments would be as counterproductive as it was disrespectful.) The curriculum isn't just based on interest, but on these children's interests. Naturally, teachers will have broadly conceived themes and objectives in mind, but they don't just design a course of study for their students; they design it with them, and they welcome unexpected detours. One fourth-grade teacher's curriculum, therefore, won't be the same as that of the teacher next door, nor will her curriculum be the same this year as it was for the children she taught last year. It's not enough to offer elaborate thematic units prefabricated by the adults. And progressive educators realize that the students must help to formulate not only the course of study but also the outcomes or standards that inform those lessons.

Some of the features that I've listed here will seem objectionable, or at least unsettling, to educators at more traditional schools, while others will be surprisingly familiar and may even echo sentiments that they, themselves, have expressed. But progressive educators don't merely say they endorse ideas like "love of learning" or "a sense of community." They're willing to put these values into practice even if doing so requires them to up-end traditions. They may eliminate homework altogether if it's clear that students view after-school assignments as something to be gotten over with as soon as possible. They will question things like honors classes and awards assemblies that clearly undermine a sense of community. Progressive schools, in short, follow their core values - bolstered by research and experience - wherever they lead.
What It Isn't
Misconceptions about progressive education generally take two forms. Either it is defined too narrowly so that the significance of the change it represents is understated, or else an exaggerated, caricatured version is presented in order to justify dismissing the whole approach. Let's take each of these in turn.

Individualized attention from caring, respectful teachers is terribly important. But it does not a progressive school make. To assume otherwise not only dilutes progressivism; it's unfair to traditional educators, most of whom are not callous Gradgrinds or ruler-wielding nuns. In fact, it's perfectly consistent to view education as the process of filling children up with bits of knowledge - and to use worksheets, lectures, quizzes, homework, grades, and other such methods in pursuit of that goal - while being genuinely concerned about each child's progress. Schools with warm, responsive teachers who know each student personally can take pride in that fact, but they shouldn't claim on that basis to be progressive.

Moreover, traditional schools aren't always about memorizing dates and definitions; sometimes they're also committed to helping students understand ideas. As one science teacher pointed out, "For thoughtful traditionalists, thinking is couched in terms of comprehending, integrating, and applying knowledge." However, the student's task in such classrooms is "comprehending how the teacher has integrated or applied the ideas... and [then] reconstruct[ing] the teacher's thinking."[3] There are interesting concepts being discussed in some traditional classrooms, in other words, but what distinguishes progressive education is that students must construct their own understanding of ideas.

There's another mistake based on too narrow a definition, which took me a while to catch on to: A school that is culturally progressive is not necessarily educationally progressive. An institution can be steeped in lefty politics and multi-grain values; it can be committed to diversity, peace, and saving the planet - but remain strikingly traditional in its pedagogy. In fact, one can imagine an old-fashioned pour-in-the-facts approach being used to teach lessons in tolerance or even radical politics.[4]

Less innocuous, or accidental, is the tendency to paint progressive education as a touchy-feely, loosey-goosey, fluffy, fuzzy, undemanding exercise in leftover hippie idealism - or Rousseauvian Romanticism. In this cartoon version of the tradition, kids are free to do anything they please, the curriculum can consist of whatever is fun (and nothing that isn't fun). Learning is thought to happen automatically while the teachers just stand by, observing and beaming. I lack the space here to offer examples of this sort of misrepresentation - or a full account of why it's so profoundly wrong - but trust me: People really do sneer at the idea of progressive education based on an image that has little to do with progressive education.
Why It Makes Sense
For most people, the fundamental reason to choose, or offer, a progressive education is a function of their basic values: "a rock-bottom commitment to democracy," as Joseph Featherstone put it; a belief that meeting children's needs should take precedence over preparing future employees; and a desire to nourish curiosity, creativity, compassion, skepticism, and other virtues.

Fortunately, what may have begun with values (for any of us as individuals, and also for education itself, historically speaking) has turned out to be supported by solid data. A truly impressive collection of research has demonstrated that when students are able to spend more time thinking about ideas than memorizing facts and practicing skills - and when they are invited to help direct their own learning - they are not only more likely to enjoy what they're doing but to do it better. Progressive education isn't just more appealing; it's also more productive.

I reviewed decades' worth of research in the late 1990s: studies of preschools and high schools; studies of instruction in reading, writing, math, and science; broad studies of "open classrooms," "student-centered" education, and teaching consistent with constructivist accounts of learning, but also investigations of specific innovations like democratic classrooms, multiage instruction, looping, cooperative learning, and authentic assessment (including the abolition of grades). Across domains, the results overwhelmingly favor progressive education. Regardless of one's values, in other words, this approach can be recommended purely on the basis of its effectiveness. And if your criteria are more ambitious - long-term retention of what's been taught, the capacity to understand ideas and apply them to new kinds of problems, a desire to continue learning - the relative benefits of progressive education are even greater.[5] This conclusion is only strengthened by the lack of data to support the value of standardized tests, homework, conventional discipline (based on rewards or consequences), competition, and other traditional practices.[6]

Since I published that research review, similar findings have continued to accumulate. Several newer studies confirm that traditional academic instruction for very young children is counterproductive.[7] Students in elementary and middle school did better in science when their teaching was "centered on projects in which they took a high degree of initiative. Traditional activities, such as completing worksheets and reading primarily from textbooks, seemed to have no positive effect."[8] Another recent study found that an "inquiry-based" approach to learning is more beneficial than conventional methods for low-income and minority students.[9] The results go on and on. In fact, I occasionally stumble upon older research that I'd missed earlier - including a classic five-year investigation of almost 11,000 children between the ages of eight and sixteen, which found that students who attended progressive schools were less likely to cheat than those who attended conventional schools - a result that persisted even after the researchers controlled for age, IQ, and family background.[10]
Why It's Rare
Despite the fact that all schools can be located on a continuum stretching between the poles of totally progressive and totally traditional - or, actually, on a series of continuums reflecting the various components of those models - it's usually possible to visit a school and come away with a pretty clear sense of whether it can be classified as predominantly progressive. It's also possible to reach a conclusion about how many schools - or even individual classrooms - in America merit that label: damned few. The higher the grade level, the rarer such teaching tends to be, and it's not even all that prevalent at the lower grades.[11] (Also, while it's probably true that most progressive schools are independent, most independent schools are not progressive.)

The rarity of this approach, while discouraging to some of us, is also rather significant with respect to the larger debate about education. If progressive schooling is actually quite uncommon, then it's hard to blame our problems (real or alleged) on this model. Indeed, the facts have the effect of turning the argument on its head: If students aren't learning effectively, it may be because of the persistence of traditional beliefs and practices in our nation's schools.

But we're also left with a question: If progressive education is so terrific, why is it still the exception rather than the rule? I often ask the people who attend my lectures to reflect on this, and the answers that come back are varied and provocative. For starters, they tell me, progressive education is not only less familiar but also much harder to do, and especially to do well. It asks a lot more of the students and at first can seem a burden to those who have figured out how to play the game in traditional classrooms - often succeeding by conventional standards without doing much real thinking. It's also much more demanding of teachers, who have to know their subject matter inside and out if they want their students to "make sense of biology or literature" as opposed to "simply memoriz[ing] the frog's anatomy or the sentence's structure."[12] But progressive teachers also have to know a lot about pedagogy because no amount of content knowledge (say, expertise in science or English) can tell you how to facilitate learning. The belief that anyone who knows enough math can teach it is a corollary of the belief that learning is a process of passive absorption -a view that cognitive science has decisively debunked.

Progressive teachers also have to be comfortable with uncertainty, not only to abandon a predictable march toward the "right answer" but to let students play an active role in the quest for meaning that replaces it. That means a willingness to give up some control and let students take some ownership, which requires guts as well as talent. These characteristics appear not to be as common as we might like to think. Almost a decade ago, in an interview for this magazine, I recalled my own experience in high school classrooms with some chagrin: "I prided myself on being an entertaining lecturer, very knowledgeable, funny, charismatic, and so on. It took me years to realize [that my] classroom was all about me, not about the kids. It was about teaching, not about learning."[13] The more we're influenced by the insights of progressive education, the more we're forced to rethink what it means to be a good teacher. That process will unavoidably ruffle some feathers, including our own.

And speaking of feather-ruffling, I'm frequently reminded that progressive education has an uphill journey because of the larger culture we live in. It's an approach that is in some respects inherently subversive, and people in power do not always enjoy being subverted. As Vito Perrone has written, "The values of progressivism - including skepticism, questioning, challenging, openness, and seeking alternate possibilities - have long struggled for acceptance in American society. That they did not come to dominate the schools is not surprising."[14]

There is pressure to raise standardized test scores, something that progressive education manages to do only sometimes and by accident - not only because that isn't its purpose but also because such tests measure what matters least. (The recognition of that fact explains why progressive schools would never dream of using standardized tests as part of their admissions process.) More insidiously, though, we face pressure to standardize our practices in general. Thinking is messy, and deep thinking is really messy. This reality coexists uneasily with demands for order - in schools where the curriculum is supposed to be carefully coordinated across grade levels and planned well ahead of time, or in society at large.

And then (as my audiences invariably point out) there are parents who have never been invited to reconsider their assumptions about education. As a result, they may be impressed by the wrong things, reassured by signs of traditionalism - letter grades, spelling quizzes, heavy textbooks, a teacher in firm control of the classroom - and unnerved by their absence. Even if their children are obviously unhappy, parents may accept that as a fact of life. Instead of wanting the next generation to get better than we got, it's as though their position was: "Listen, if it was bad enough for me, it's bad enough for my kids." Perhaps they subscribe to what might be called the Listerine theory of education, based on a famous ad campaign that sought to sell this particular brand of mouthwash on the theory that if it tasted vile, it obviously worked well. The converse proposition, of course, is that anything appealing is likely to be ineffective. If a child is lucky enough to be in a classroom featuring, say, student-designed project-based investigations, the parent may wonder, "But is she really learning anything? Where are the worksheets?" And so the teachers feel pressure to make the instruction worse.

All progressive schools experience a constant undertow, perhaps a request to reintroduce grades of some kind, to give special enrichments to the children of the "gifted" parents, to start up a competitive sports program (because American children evidently don't get enough of winning and losing outside of school), to punish the kid who did that bad thing to my kid, to administer a standardized test or two ("just so we can see how they're doing"), and, above all, to get the kids ready for what comes next - even if this amounts to teaching them badly so they'll be prepared for the bad teaching to which they'll be subjected later.[15]

This list doesn't exhaust the reasons that progressive education is uncommon. However, the discussion that preceded it, of progressive education's advantages, was also incomplete, which suggests that working to make it a little more common is a worthy pursuit. We may not be able to transform a whole school, or even a classroom, along all of these dimensions, at least not by the end of this year. But whatever progress we can make is likely to benefit our students. And doing what's best for them is the reason all of us got into this line of work in the first place.

_______________________________________________________________________________
SIDEBAR: A Dozen Questions for Progressive Schools
Because of what I've described as the undertow that progressive educators inevitably experience, it's possible for them to wake up one morning with the unsettling realization that their school has succumbed to a creeping traditionalism and drifted from the vision of its founders. Here are some pointed questions to spur collective reflection and, perhaps, corrective action.

1. Is our school committed to being educationally progressive, or is it content with an atmosphere that's progressive only in the political or cultural sense of the word?

2. Is a progressive vision being pursued unapologetically, or does a fear of alienating potential applicants lead to compromising that mission and trying to be all things to all people? ("We offer a nurturing environment . . . of rigorous college preparation.")

3. Is the education that the oldest students receive just as progressive as that offered to the youngest, or would a visitor conclude that those in the upper grades seem to attend a different school altogether?

4. Is the teaching organized around problems, projects, and questions? Is most of the instruction truly interdisciplinary, or is literature routinely separated from social studies - or even from spelling? Has acquiring skills (e.g., arithmetic, vocabulary) come to be over-emphasized rather than seen as a means to the end of understanding and communicating ideas?

5. To what extent are students involved in designing the curriculum? Is it a learner-centered environment, or are lessons presented to the children as faits accomplis? How much are students involved in other decisions, such as room decoration, classroom management, assessment, and so on? Are teachers maintaining control over children, even in subtle ways, so that the classrooms are less democratic than they could be?

6. Is assessment consistent with a progressive vision, or are students evaluated and rated with elaborate rubrics[16] and grade-substitutes? Do students end up, as in many traditional schools, spending so much time thinking about how well they're doing that they're no longer as engaged with what they're doing?

7. Do administrators respect teachers' professionalism and need for autonomy - or is there a style of top-down control that's inconsistent with how teachers are urged to treat students? Conversely, is it possible that teachers' insistence on being left alone has permitted them to drift from genuinely progressive practice in some areas?

8. Are educators acting like lifelong learners, always willing to question familiar ways - or do they sometimes fall back on tradition and justify practices on the grounds that something is just "the [name of school] way"? Are teachers encouraged to visit one another's classrooms and offered opportunities to talk about pedagogy on a regular basis?

9. Is cooperation emphasized throughout the school - or are there remnants of an adversarial approach? Do students typically make decisions by trying to reach consensus or do they simply vote? Do competitive games still dominate physical education and even show up in classrooms? Do most learning experiences take place in pairs and small groups, or does the default arrangement consist of having students do things on their own?

10. Is homework assigned only when it's absolutely necessary to extend and enrich a lesson, or is it assigned on a regular basis (as in a traditional school)? If homework is given, are the assignments predicated on - and justified by - a behaviorist model of "reinforcing" what they were taught - or do they truly deepen students' understanding of, and engagement with, ideas? How much of a role do the students play in making decisions about homework?

11. Does the question "How will this affect children's interest in learning (and in the topic at hand)?" inform all choices about curriculum, instruction, and scheduling - or has a focus on right answers and "rigor" led some students to become less curious about, and excited by, what they're doing?

12. Is the school as progressive and collaborative in nonacademic (social, behavioral) matters as it is in the academic realm, or are there remnants of "consequence"-based control such that the focus is sometimes more on order and compliance than on fostering moral reasoning, social skills, and democratic dispositions?
NOTES
1. The latter view is represented in both the Reggio Emilia approach to early-childhood education and the Foxfire tradition.

2. James H. Nehring, "Progressive vs. Traditional: Reframing an Old Debate," Education Week, February 1, 2006, p. 32.

3. Mark Windschitl, "Why We Can't Talk to One Another About Science Education Reform," Phi Delta Kappan, January 2006, p. 352.

4. As I was preparing this article, a middle-school student of my acquaintance happened to tell me about a class she was taking that featured a scathing indictment of American imperialism - as well as fact-based quizzes and report cards that praised students for being "well behaved" and "on-task."

5. See Alfie Kohn, The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards" (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999), esp. Appendix A.

6. I've tackled each of these issues in separate books. See the sources cited in, respectively, The Case Against Standardized Testing (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2000), The Homework Myth (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2006), Beyond Discipline, rev. ed. (Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2006), and No Contest: The Case Against Competition(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986/1992). Still other research exists to challenge assumptions about the benefits of specific practices ranging from school uniforms to explicit instruction in grammar.

7. See the addendum to "Early-Childhood Education: The Case Against Direct Instruction of Academic Skills" h ere.

8. Harold Wenglinsky, "Facts or Critical Thinking Skills?", Educational Leadership, September 2004, p. 33.

9. Michael Klentschy, Leslie Garrison, and Olga Ameral's four-year review of student achievement data is summarized in Olaf Jorgenson and Rick Vanosdall, "The Death of Science?" Phi Delta Kappan, April 2002, p. 604.

10. Character Education Inquiry, Studies in the Nature of Character. Volume 1: Studies in Deceit (New York: Macmillan, 1928), Book 2, p. 184.

11. Educational historian Larry Cuban's review of "almost 7,000 different classroom accounts and results from studies in numerous settings revealed the persistent occurrence of teacher-centered practices since the turn of the century" ( How Teachers Taught: Constancy and Change in American Classrooms, 1890-1980 [New York: Longman, 1984]). John Goodlad, author of the classic study A Place Called School, revisited the subject in 1999 and concluded that "although progressive views have enjoyed sufficient visibility to bring down on them and their adherents barrages of negative rhetoric, they have managed to create only isolated islands of practice.... Most teachers adhere closely to a view of school as they experienced it as students and so perpetuate the traditional" ("Flow, Eros, and Ethos in Educational Renewal," Phi Delta Kappan, April 1999, p. 573). His assessment was corroborated as recently as last year by a national study of first, third, and fifth grade classrooms in more than 1,000 schools: "Children spent most of their time (91.2%) working in whole-group or individual-seatwork settings" and "the average fifth grader received five times as much instruction in basic skills as instruction focused on problem solving or reasoning; this ratio was 10:1 in first and third grades" (Robert C. Pianta et al., "Opportunities to Learn in America's Elementary Classrooms," Science, vol. 315, March 30, 2007, p. 1795). A study of 669 classrooms in Washington state, meanwhile, found that "strong constructivist teaching was observable in about 17% of the classroom lessons" (Martin L. Abbott and Jeffrey T. Fouts, "Constructivist Teaching and Student Achievement," Washington School Research Center, Technical Report #5, February 2003, p. 1). For still more evidence, see Kohn, Schools, pp. 5-9.

12. David K. Cohen and Carol A. Barnes, "Conclusion: A New Pedagogy for Policy?" in Teaching for Understanding, ed. by David K. Cohen et al. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993), p. 245. The relevance of this point for the largely unsuccessful efforts of progressive education to establish itself over time has been noted by many thinkers, including John Dewey, Lawrence Cremin, and Linda Darling-Hammond.

13. Kitty Thuermer, "In Defense of the Progressive School: An Interview with Alfie Kohn," Independent School, Fall 1999, p. 96. In their book Methods That Matter (York, ME: Stenhouse, 1998), Harvey Daniels and Marilyn Bizar drove the point home: "Teachers probably wouldn't have originally chosen their vocation if they didn't crave the spotlight on some deep psychological level. The hunger to 'really teach something' has probably derailed more student-centered innovations than administrative cowardice and textbook company co-option combined" (p. 12).

14. Vito Perrone, "Why Do We Need a Pedagogy of Understanding?" in Teaching for Understanding, ed. by Martha Stone Wiske (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998), p. 23.

15. For more on this phenomenon, see my essay "Getting-Hit-on-the-Head Lessons," Education Week, September 7, 2005, pp. 52, 46-47.

16. See Maja Wilson, Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2006); or my article "The Trouble with Rubrics," English Journal, March 2006, pp. 12-15.

Copyright © 2008 by Alfie Kohn. This article may be downloaded, reproduced, and distributed without permission as long as each copy includes this notice along with citation information (i.e., name of the periodical in which it originally appeared, date of publication, and author's name). Permission must be obtained in order to reprint this article in a published work or in order to offer it for sale in any form. Please write to the address indicated on the Contact Us page.

www.alfiekohn.org - © Alfie Kohn

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INDEPENDENT SCHOOL Spring 2008 By Alfie Kohn RELATED PUBLICATIONS: * "What to Look for in a Classroom" (table) * "A Dozen Basic Guidelines for Educators" (list) * "The Trouble with Pure Freedom" (lecture) If progressive education doesn't lend itself to a single fixed definition, that seems fitting in light of its reputation for resisting conformity and standardization.

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Where PBL/IL works and when it's useless.

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Where PBL/IL works and when it's useless.

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Are you a teacher and surprised by some of the evidence found in the Visible Learning research? Wouldn't it be great to discuss your questions directly with Professor Hattie? In 2016, Corwin, a partner of John Hattie's professional development program Visible Learning Plus, has organized an online Q&A. (Corwin has also published Visible Learning for Literacy, the latest addition to John Hattie's VL series). Here are the questions that teachers and school leaders submitted to Professor John Hattie. We provide an excerpt of each answer as a quick take-away. But you should definitely take the time to listen to the full answers. And read the the books.

1. Why does inquiry-based learning only have an effect size of 0.31 when it is an approach to learning that seems to engage students and teachers so readily in the process of learning?
-Question submitted by a school improvement resource team leader from Canada
Professor John Hattie: "It turns out that if you are learning surface-level information, the content, as contrasted with deep learning which is the relationships between the content, then problem-based learning, inquiry-based learning is pretty useless. But if you don't teach the surface and the content, you've got nothing to inquire about. [...] The reason it comes out very low on the chart is because most teachers introduce it far too early."

2. Why are we striving for an "assessment-capable learner" and not a "self-regulated learner"?
-Question submitted by a Principal from Southern California
Professor John Hattie: "If we teach the students how to evaluate their own learning, that's what the key of formative assessment is. And of course, if you're going to teach the students that, the teachers have to know it to teach the students that. So you get this double virtuous circle without all that language that goes with formative vs. summative."

3. What are the three most important things I can do in my classes to improve learning?
-Question submitted by a Teacher leader from Texas
Professor John Hattie: "Know thy impact!" Having an understanding...

what impact means,

about the magnitude, how big the impact you want,

about the equity question, whether all kids get that impact."

4. What methods have been successfully used to effect a paradigm shift at the campus and district level?
-Question submitted by a Curriculum instructional specialist from Texas
Professor John Hattie: "It's about how we think about what we do. Do we have a mind frame that we actually can collectively make a difference to these kids?"

5. Is there a correlation between calculating effect size and percentile rating? If so, how do you compare scores and effect size?
-Question by Ainsley Rose, Corwin Author and Certified Visible Learning Plus Trainer
Professor John Hattie: "Yes, there is a way to do it. Unfortunately, you have to use something that is not easy and not obvious. But I'd express a lot of caution. Percentiles have some major problems. The whole point of percentiles is to compare students to other students. And yes, there is a place for that, I suppose, but what I'm much more interested in with the effect size notion is the learning for each individual student, and when you look at the averages of the effect size, you've in sense got a comparison."

6. What is the effect size for the cultural competence of the teacher?
-Question submitted by an education consultant from Seattle, WA
Professor John Hattie: "Teachers, they do understand what kids bring to the classroom. Certainly the effect size of that is extremely high. [... ] It's how the kids think: Are these kids prepared to take challenges? Are they prepared to be risk takers? Do they study learning because they want to perform well in front of their peers. Or do they do it because they want to reinvest in learning and really want to master what they do. These are critical dimensions to make connections with these kids, to help them on this learning journey."

7. How can we prioritize which influences to focus on during the school year?
-Question submitted by a Principal from Michigan
Professor John Hattie: "Having a collective understanding of the actual problems we need to work on is critical. But at all times, we need to be very careful not to make changes to things that are really working. So that's where the prioritization starts. Then, what I'd love schools and districts to do is to map that with what are the high-probability effects from the research side of things [...] and from that then we do our interventions."

8. How does communicating the learning target impact student learning?
-Question submitted by an Instructional coach from Arizona
Professor John Hattie: "You need learning intentions and success criteria. It's those two things that go together. It is giving the kids a sense of what is the purpose of what we are learning here today. [...] Like think of kids playing video games. They know what it means to be successful: Get to the next level. And they're prepared to invest an incredible number of hours to get to that next level. And they get very many cues and understandings of what that next level is."

9. Why does ability grouping or tracking have a negative effect size?
-Question submitted by a Supervisor of math and science from New Jersey
Professor John Hattie: "It has a very close to zero effect size. And in many ways that means it doesn't matter whether you track or you don't track. [...] But the biggest problem with tracking - by a million miles - is the equity issue. For instance if you look at this country here. There is a higher probability for African Americans and Hispanics being in the lower track groups. How can you possibly defend that apartheid in that schools?!"

10. What RTI models did you investigate? What critical attributes were included in the models that you looked at?
-Question submitted by an Assessment coordinator from Iowa
Professor John Hattie: "I'm not weighted to one particular way of implementing the RTI model. What I like about the RTI model again it comes back to how we think. The RTI is always looking at the Response - To - Intervention. And then making adaptations and changes in light of that. And that's exactly what the Visible Learning notions are."

11. How does recess, art and music impact student achievement?
-Question submitted by a Principal from Michigan
Professor John Hattie: "Many years ago when I was a real teacher I was a music teacher. And so this question is very passionate to me. The answer is it's very very small but I wished it was zero. Because understanding music is worthwhile in itself. Why do we have to justify a subject just because it relates to a narrow excellence of teaching maths, literacy and numeracy? [...] Recess, art and music are worthwhile things! Kids need to have multiple ways of learning. I think the most important outcome of our schooling is kids who want to reinvest in learning. Not reinvest in a narrow excellence. There are multiple ways to be excellent in schools."

Video source: www.corwin.com/visiblelearning

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11 Questions to Professor John Hattie, asked by teachers (VIDEO)

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Are you a teacher and surprised by some of the evidence found in the Visible Learning research? Wouldn't it be great to discuss your questions directly with Professor Hattie? In 2016, Corwin, a partner of John Hattie's professional development program Visible Learning Plus, has organized...Read more ›

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What the Heck is Inquiry Based Learning?

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What the Heck is Inquiry Based Learning?

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What the Heck Is Inquiry-Based Learning?

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Teachers use inquiry-based learning to combat the “dunno” -- a chronic problem in student engagement. Check out these four steps for creating inquiry-based curriculum.

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​​​​​​​​​​​​About STEM

VISION: STEM education will prepare​ students to understand the local and global challenges of the 21st century and inspire them to become lifelong learners who will confront these challenges and seek solutions.

MISSION: To prepare all students for the challenges and opportunities in the 21st century global economy by providing rigorous, equitable and accessible education in STEM.

GOALS

Integrated STEM: Purposefully integrate science, mathematics, technology and engineering to provide all students with engaging, real-world, and rigorous experiences in STEM​

Increase the number of highly qualified and highly effective STEM teachers ​

Provide students with a solid foundation in the content, practices, and organizing principles of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics

Increase the number of public school graduates, especially those from traditionally underrepresented groups, who pursue college degrees and/or careers in STEM fields

Cultivate community partnerships to provide access to diverse, high-quality STEM teaching and learning opportunities​

STEM Resources

STEM Capstone Projects

The STEM Honors Certificate is available for graduates of the 2016 class and beyond. A STEM Capstone Project is one component required for students to earn the STEM Honors Certificate. The other requirements include:

4 credits of math (Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, Calculus)

4 credits of science (Biology required, Chemistry and Physics recommended)

3.0 and above GPA

A STEM Capstone Project must be completed in one of these approved ACCN courses:

Senior Project

XSP1010

Introduction to STEM: Service Learning

XEP1100

Directed Study in Science

SAH3503

Seminar in Scientific Research

SAH4503

Health Services Career Pathway Capstone

THK4990

Industrial and Engineering Technology Career Pathway Capstone

TIK5900

Natural Resource Career Pathway Capstone

TNK6990

Advance Placement Seminar

XAP1000

Advance Placement Research

XAP1100

Resources available for teachers implementing STEM Capstone projects include:

[VIEW] Project Overview - includes an alignment of STEM practices to GLOs and STEM and non-STEM project samples.

[VIEW] Project Planning Guide

[VIEW] Capstone Project Checklist

[VIEW] Paper, Portfolio, Presentation and STEM Competencies Rubric Samples

[VIEW] Capstone Project Sample Syllabi

[VIEW] May 2015 STEM Capstone Webinar Powerpoint and Q&A Sessions

The documents and resources provide a foundation for a STEM Capstone Project, but do not prescribe a curriculum. Schools and teachers have the latitude and flexibility to use these resources as appropriate for their students, while fulfilling the purposes of the STEM Capstone Project.

​

World Conservation Congress resource bank

Hawai'i welcomed the world in September 2016 for the World Conservation Congress ( WCC), a global gathering held every four years organized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The goal of this Resource Bank was to provide educators with a starting point for locating resources relevant to the themes of IUCN and WCC, particularly biodiversity, food and water security, and climate change.

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Hawaii DOE | Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM)

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VISION: STEM education will prepare​ students to understand the local and global challenges of the 21st century and inspire them to become lifelong learners who will confront these challenges and seek solutions. MISSION: To prepare all students for the challenges and opportunities in the 21st century global economy by providing rigorous, equitable and accessible education in STEM.

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Claimed by mark

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Good article on Diversity starting on page 28.

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http://www.hawaiipublicschools.org/TeachingAndLearning/StudentLearning/CommonCoreStateStandards/Pages/home.aspx

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http://www.wingraschool.org/who/progressive.htm

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Great article about Global Education starting on page 36.