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10 characteristics of authentic learning

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learning, technology, education, steve, wheeler, social media, internet, mobile, school, teachers

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Ed Tech

"I want to tell you something about <insert topic>."

"Let's have a discussion about <insert topic>."

If someone approached you with these two statements, which would draw you in most?

For many of us in many circumstances, we'd pick engaging in discussion. Why? It's back and forth. A two-way street. Everyone gets to participate, and everyone something learns from everyone.

Discussion is a powerful tool in the classroom, too. Current research cited by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics shows that discussion can increase student learning, motivate students, support teachers in understanding and assessing student thinking, and shift authority from a teacher or textbook to community.

It's also a powerful teaching strategy that can save teachers time!

During a discussion, the teacher doesn't drive all of the instruction.

Preparing to moderate a class discussion vs. lecture can save planning time.

The interactive nature of discussion and the contrast of voices (i.e. not just the teacher's voice) can have great benefits.

Hearing responses from classmates can be memorable for students.

So ... how can we create a discussion-rich classroom? How do we set students up to succeed in discussion, and what does it look like in practice?

Let's take a look!

Creating a discussion-rich classroom CULTURE

Ask students what they want to discuss

We've all been a part of discussions that went nowhere. No engagement. No participation. When learners -- adults or children! -- are forced into a discussion, they see little incentive for engaging. However, if there's a natural draw into the discussion, they won't just participate. They'll WANT to participate.

How can we do that? Let students have a say in what is discussed or how it is discussed. Even if the discussion needs to go in a certain direction, students can have a say in a specific focus, in the way the discussion is organized, or how to make it more engaging.

Resource: 20 juicy questions to ask students (#5 will REALLY get them talking!)

Give students ownership with surveys and voting

We just gave students a voice in what they want to discuss. So ... how can we make that happen? Fifth grade teacher Gina Ruffcorn, author of the book Our Class, Our Voice, lets her students vote and fill out surveys to give them a voice in what happens in class.

How do we know what our students think and feel if we never ask them? When we know what students want in a classroom, they can be more productive learners. We can use student surveys and provide opportunities for our students to vote on different discussion activities. Do students prefer to have a speed dating discussion or do they want to listen and learn through a fishbowl discussion activity? -- Gina Ruffcorn, Our Class, Our Voice

Video series on class voting, student surveys, and more
Fifth grade teacher and author Gina Ruffcorn shares some of her best tips, strategies, and ideas for giving her students a voice in class in this four-part video series.

Classroom voting: Gina shares some of her best tips for taking class votes as well as a list of things her students vote on.

Student surveys: Gina shares three types of surveys her students take and how she uses the resutls in class.

Use discussion mapping and logs for conversation equity

We've all been a part of a discussion that didn't really feel like a discussion, right? One person -- or just a few people -- monopolized all the discussion space, leaving LOTS of people's voices unheard. It doesn't have to be that way. A couple strategies can help.

Strategy 1: Discussion mapping
Monitor who is contributing to discussions using discussion mapping; analyze to see who is taking space in the discussion and share so students can be aware of making space in discussions for others. Also helps avoid the teacher controlling the discussion or responding to students, rather than students responding to each other. -- Amanda Madsen (via our EfficienTEACH planning document)

Strategy 2: Discussion logs
Ask students to log responses of self and peers during discussion to work toward understanding when they need to communicate more or back off so as not to overtake the discussion. Encourage students to draw in other students whose voices have been silenced with open-ended questioning. -- Stacy Roeming (via our EfficienTEACH planning document)

10 ways to teach active listening in the classroom

Listening is a skill! If we want to host rich discussions in our classrooms, listening is a crucial part of it. Only one person can talk at once, so there are LOTS of students listening. When students listen, the subsequent responses in the discussion will be richer.

It seems intuitive to just listen. Everybody listens, right? But not everyone is good at it.

"Genuine listening has become a rare gift-the gift of time," writes Dianne Schilling, a writer, editor, graphic artist and instructional designer. "It helps build relationships, solve problems, ensure understanding, resolve conflicts, and improve accuracy."

Her 10 tips to develop active listening skills are summarized in the infographic above and in this Forbes article.

An exercise she suggests to improve active listening: conclude every conversation in which information is exchanged with a summary statement.

10 discussion strategies to use in class tomorrow

1. Sentence stems

Sentence stems are a great jumping-off point for a discussion. They're sentence starters. Students use a sentence stem like "I agree with this because ..." and finish it. It's a form of scaffolding, less daunting than coming up with sentences all on your own.
Using sentence stems and small groups is great. Students choose one sentence stem to complete, go to small groups and share their sentences. One member reads their choice of the best sentence aloud. So, they don't even have to share their own. Then, they can write each others' sentences for a great summary. -- Michelle Brumley (via our EfficienTEACH planning document)

Resource: Sentence Stems: Reporting Out in Academic Language (printable with two sets per sheet) by Karly Moura, Ditch That Textbook blog and social media editor

Resource: Sentence Stems from The Teacher Toolkit with elementary and secondary videos, downloadable templates, and ideas for use

2. Friends without Pens

From an AP workshop, but usable all over the place for writing practice, "Friends without Pens" as a protocol students are paired to talk about the answer to a question/prompt, but n ot allowed to write down anything during the discussion (hence friends without pens), but then individually write out answers. It allows students to brainstorm with one (or more) other brains, but their actual practice writing will be their own. It is meant to help students put ideas into written work. -- Tim Ellis (via our EfficienTEACH planning document)

Additional Perspective: Reducing Exam Anxiety: Friends without Pens gives students time to chat about the exam before starting

3. Think-Pair-Share (and variations)

This strategy has been around for a LONG time, but it still works. It gives students time to think before responding to questions with a partner. It builds confidence. Plus, students are more likely to participate when they can write and discuss ideas with one other before sharing with the whole group.

Variations on Think-Pair-Share (via The Teacher Toolkit):

Think-Listening Pair-Share: To work on students' listening skills, tell them that they can only share their partner's viewpoint during "Share."

Think-Pair-Square: After "Pair," have partners "Square" with another pair to discuss their ideas, making a group of 4.

Think-Pair-Share - The Teacher Toolkit (This also included the variations)

4. Number Talks

Number Talks are short, daily exercises that help students build number sense. Number sense is the ability to think flexibly and fluently about numbers. Students who have strong number sense can visualize and talk comfortably about numbers.
Resource: Resource: Number Talks via Meaningful Math Moments by Jennifer Barker Number Talks agenda, explanation and ideas via youcubed

5. Socratic Method

The Socratic method teaches through the asking and answering of questions. It's been around for centuries, based on the teaching style of Socrates. "It has survived the test of time mainly because it is student-centered, based on the art of questioning, and fundamentally constructivist in design," writes Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa in Making Classrooms Better.

Here are research-based tips offered for the Socratic method in Making Classrooms Better:

To manage Socratic dialogue, a teacher must have a strong command of the content. They must also be able to stimulate dynamic conversation that captures student attention.

Base discussion in clear conversational guidelines. For example, students should know each other's names. They should understand that their active participation is key to success. Students should focus on answering with concepts or principles, not first-person narratives.

Embrace silence. This gives students' brains time to think and find the right reaction.

Focus on the entire body of questions. A good Socrative seminar isn't based on a good question, but rather a string of questions that leads students in a path of thinking.

Resource: Resource: Socratic Seminar Sentence Stems via Facing History and Ourselves SocraticSeminar via Facing History and Ourselves

6. Student-Produced Questions

The Socratic method (above) focuses on a teacher leading students through a line of questions. But asking questions is challenging, and students can do deep thinking and learning by developing questions ( Franke et al., 2009). This practice also engages students' working memory and long-term memory ( Arnold, 2013).

Instead of asking students to produce answers, encourage students to ask their own questions.

7. Fishbowl Strategy

The fishbowl strategy is a fantastic way to have students model having a conversation while others watch and listen. In this strategy the students are separated into an inner and outer circle. The inner circle of students engage in conversation while the outside circle listens and takes notes.

Resource: Fishbowl Strategy via Facing History and Ourselves

8. Question Formulation Technique

Question Formulation Technique (via the Right Question Institute) is a framework to help students dive deep into a topic by generating questions. Here are the main steps:

1. Create a question focus: This is a statement, a visual, audio, etc. but not a question. It should be simple and guide the production of different lines of questioning.

2. Produce questions: Based on the focus, ask as many questions as you can. Don't discuss, judge, or answer them.

3. Improve questions: Categorize them as open-ended and closed-ended. Change open-ended questions to closed and vice versa.

4. Prioritize questions: Decide how many questions you'll narrow your list to. Create criteria for prioritizing. Decide what you'll do next with your questions.

5. Reflect: Think about the question process, the results, and what happens next. What did you learn, and how can you use it?

Resource: Question Formulation Technique steps (via Right Question Institute)

9. Visible Thinking Routines

Visible thinking routines are a set of questions or a brief sequence of steps used to scaffold and support student thinking, according to Harvard Graduate School of Education's Project Zero. They're quick, plug-and-play strategies you can use without lots of training or work to implement. You can find dozens of visible thinking routines here, or check out a few favorites below:

I Used to Think, Now I Think: A simple line of thinking where students share how they thought before, how they think now, and what caused the change.

Compass Points: A four-point discussion prompt reflecting the four points of a compass. N: Need to know; E: Excited; S: Stance or Suggestion; W: Worrisome

Circle of Viewpoints: Brainstorm a list of different perspectives on a topic and describe the topic from those viewpoints.

Resource: Introducing Visible Thinking Routines (via Harvard Graduate School of Education's Project Zero)

10. Concentric Circles (aka "Speed Dating")

This activity encourages all learners to be both the speaker and the listener. It's great for child AND adult learners. I've used it in professional development several times!

The group arranges itself in two concentric circles. Those in the inside circle face outward toward those in the outside circle (and outside circle faces inward). Everyone pairs up with someone else (one on the inside and one on the outside).

Ask the group a question or give them a prompt. Describe how they'll discuss (i.e. one speaks for one minute, the other speaks for one minute, and both discuss together for a minute). When they're done, they rotate to another partner to repeat the same question/prompt OR respond to a new one.
Resource: Concentric Circles via Facing History and Ourselves

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24 ideas for creating a discussion-rich classroom

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Discussion can engage students and help them to see different perspectives. Here are strategies you can use to create a discussion-rich classroom."I want

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After indicating the problem at hand, scoop out the tools, research, networks, and people required to get it solved. Get out of your comfort zone.

"You can have students do laboratories and hands-on activities and learn nothing, because they are following the cookbook and going through the motions without having their brains on."

In practice, this means the elimination of English, mathematics, history, and science class. Instead, we need to arrange the curriculum around big ideas, questions, and conundrums. What does learning look like in this model? Letting kids learn by doing - the essence of the philosophy of educator John Dewey. He wrote: "The school must represent present life - life as real and vital to the child as that which he carries on in the home, in the neighborhood, or on the playground." Let kids travel to places, work with mentors, and inquire about the world around them.

Diana Laufenberg, former teacher at the Science Leadership Academy, described to me, "The role of inquiry is the starting point of learning. School-based education has always been about telling and getting of information, rather than exploring or investigating." Let kids create for themselves. We can start by employing project-based learning, where students probe real world problems collaboratively. Back in 1918, William Heard Kilpatrick wrote a famous article laying out what he called the "project method": a curriculum based on "wholehearted purposeful activity proceeding in a social environment...the essential factor [being] the presence of a dominating purpose." In project-based classrooms, learning literally comes alive.
CASE STUDY: BRIGHTWORKS
Let's examine three institutions: The Brightworks School, a K-12 private school; Stanford d.school, an institute of design; and the M.I.T. Media Lab, a graduate program.

The Brightworks School in San Francisco, California, which opened its doors in September 2011, epitomizes a new style of learning. Founder Gever Tulley told me, "If the pedagogical unit of traditional public education is a day divided into a series of 45 minute periods, then the pedagogical unit of Brightworks is the arc, which is divided into three phrases." Each arc, he says, has a central theme.

The first phase of the arc is called exploration. "Within this phase," Tulley says, "we create a landscape of experiences populated by passionate people who have devoted some portion of their lives to an aspect of the topic." The children begin a journey looking through a kaleidoscope of perspectives and eventually mold a clear statement of what they intend to accomplish in the next phase. The second phase is expression. Tulley notes, "During this phrase, the mixed age teams work together, sharing skills, to take the ideas to completion - within the deadline." The final phase is called exposition, where the public gets to view what the kids have done.

The first topic of the previous school year was cities. For three weeks, the students looked at the history of cities, how cities work, and the future of cities. 18 field trips were built into their schedule. Almost every day, Tulley explains, "we went into the city to see something or work with someone who has dedicated their life to some aspect of the city. Be they in waste water management, city planners, or architects."

"The point is to see the topic in as many ways as you possibly can," says Tulley. "Part of that is to expand the notion of cities in the students' minds."

Note: project-based learning is not necessarily expensive. He reveals, "If you look at the net aggregate cost of putting a child through a nearby public school in terms of public expenditure, at Brightworks, we do not spend anymore on kids in our private school in terms of net aggregate cost."
CASE STUDY: STANFORD D.SCHOOL
At the Stanford d.school, projects drive the curriculum. Bringing majors from engineering, business, medicine, science, and design to come together to solve real or abstract problems is the underpinning of the institution's philosophy. The goal is to have students become what are called "T-shaped" students, who have depth in a particular field of study but also breadth across multiple disciplines. Its founder and director is David Kelley, whose mission is to transmit "empathy" into his students to encourage them to see the human side of the challenges posed in class and regain their creative confidence, often lost in the early years of schooling.

Based on the axioms of what Kelley has called "design thinking," instead of being spoon-fed problems to solve, students must first define problems themselves through observation, research, and dialogue. After, students visualize and brainstorm potential solutions with one another in the stage of "ideation." Next, by means of prototypes, students make sketches and three-dimensional models of potential ideas to iterate continuously. Lastly, students make the final touches on a finished prototype.

The school concentrates on four areas: the developing world, sustainability, health and wellness, and K-12 education. From extracting water for irrigation in Burma to supplying solar lanterns for the poor in rural India and Africa to building infant warmers in Nepal, these students are certainly making their mark on the world.
CASE STUDY: M.I.T. MEDIA LAB
Similarly, the M.I.T. Media Lab has an anti-disciplinary approach to learning. Their research program is "focused on inventing a better future through creative applications of innovative digital technologies." Instead of lectures, grading, and tests, roughly 25 groups of graduate student researchers and a few undergraduate researchers work with faculty members and scientists on a research topic. Due to its non-linear and collaborative process, fascinating innovations are born from Aida, a dashboard-mounted robot for cars and trucks to a trillion-frame-per-second video to Huggable, a robot teddy bear companion for pediatric hospital patients.

"If you go into a [traditional] classroom where there isn't that structure, kids aren't exactly on pace, projects look messy, and it's loud, teachers have gotten in trouble for that."

How can we evaluate projects? We can't grade them the same way as tests. Gever Tulley offered me a very relevant hypothetical situation.

"Suppose you and I decided to build a boat. Our hypothesis might be: we can build a boat under $30 using recycled materials and sail it across the Hudson River. Our teacher or mentor can help us shape that to ensure that the challenge meets our cognitive and intellectual development. If the teacher thought the task was too easy for us, he or she might add a twist - the boat needs to have two masts or sail power. Half a day, a few times a week, you and I would work on this project and we have a deadline."

"Suppose then we build the boat, drop it in the Hudson River, and it sinks. No one has to tell us that our boat is not working. We don't need the 'F.' Its unnecessary and inappropriate. That first version of the boat could have been a hypothesis. We learned from the experience and the next version will be more well thought out. So after going back to drawing board and making tweaks, we test the final version. We find that the boat sails well downwind, but cannot sail upwind."

"What grade should a teacher give? Is that a 'C' because it only went in one direction? Or is that an 'A' because we tried a bold idea but we neglected 3,000 years of sailing history and would have been able to sail it in both directions if we had done our research? You can't decide. The feedback from the boat is its own incentive to improve our thinking for the next project."

The point is that evaluation is no longer about giving a single number, but rather a documented process from start to finish. At the Brightworks School, students will leave with an iPad, filled with all the projects they completed in their term. Plus, portfolios and publishing your work online is one of the biggest motivators for kids. When she was teaching at the Science Leadership Academy, Diana Laufenberg said that if you Googled her students' names, you would find an entire web history linked to them. Couple that with the fact that in project-based learning, kids are working on something they have a passion for, thus they have a stake in the outcome and will keep trying even when something isn't working. That's true in life as well.
PROJECT-BASED LEARNING IS MESSY
Why hasn't project-based learning picked up yet? There are a few reasons. First, the model of education says principal Chris Lehmann where kids sit in rows, read textbooks, and hear lectures has lasted so long, because it never goes that wrong. "It's boring as hell, but most principals don't yell at their teachers if they walk by their classroom and all they see is a quiet classroom with kids reading the textbook. No one gets in trouble."

"If you go into a classroom," says Lehmann, "where there isn't that structure, kids aren't exactly on pace, projects look messy, and it's loud, teachers have gotten in trouble for that."

Second, the way students attempt to learn via projects does not work. Tulley says, "It amounts to kit-based experiences in 45 minute periods. 'We're going to do a biology kit.' We already know that those recipe like exercises do not stimulate creativity."

I also spoke with Harvard Professor Eric Mazur on this issue as well. He says, "You can have students do laboratories and hands-on activities and learn nothing, because they are following the cookbook and going through the motions without having their brains on. The word 'hands-on' is overused and abused."

The role of the teacher in project-based learning as Laufenberg likes to say is an "architect of opportunity. Through a scaffolding strategy, they help us make sense of what we have learned. Still, teachers must understand that learning is uncomfortable, messy, and complicated." Get over compliance and control!

In a summary published on Edutopia, Brigid Barron and Linda Darling-Hammond reviewed numerous studies and found that:

1. Students learn more deeply when they can apply classroom-gathered knowledge to real-world problems, and when they take part in projects that require sustained engagement and collaboration.

2. Active-learning practices have a more significant impact on student performance than any other variable, including student background and prior achievement.

3. Students are most successful when they are taught how to learn as well as what to learn.

As the old adage goes, "Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I understand." Harvard Professor Howard Gardner said to me that schools should incorporate the best of two models of learning: a hands-on children's museum, which encourages open-ended exploration, and an apprenticeship, which provides a more structured environment for practicing meaningful skills in an authentic, real-life context.

The bottom line is that you don't have to learn the boring stuff before you start applying it. Start rolling around in the dirt from the get go.

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The following is an excerpt of One Size Does Not Fit All: A Student's Assessment of School, by 17-year-old Nikhil Goyal, a senior at Syosset High School in Woodbury, New York. Can creativity be taught? Absolutely. The real question is: "How do we teach it?"

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Why Choice Matters to Student Learning | KQED

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Giving students choice in how they learn and show their knowledge gives them greater ownership over the process.

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Today's students will enter a job market that values skills and abilities far different from the traditional workplace talents that so ably served their parents and grandparents. They must be able to crisply collect, synthesize, and analyze information, then conduct targeted research and work with others to employ that newfound knowledge. In essence, students must learn how to learn, while responding to endlessly changing technologies and social, economic, and global conditions.

But what types of teaching and learning will develop these skills? And, just as important, do studies exist that support their use?

A growing body of research demonstrates that students learn more deeply if they have engaged in activities that require applying classroom-gathered knowledge to real-world problems. Like the old adage states, "Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I understand."

Research shows that such inquiry-based teaching is not so much about seeking the right answer but about developing inquiring minds, and it can yield significant benefits. For example, in the 1995 School Restructuring Study, conducted at the Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools by Fred Newmann and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, 2,128 students in twenty-three schools were found to have significantly higher achievement on challenging tasks when they were taught with inquiry-based teaching, showing that involvement leads to understanding. These practices were found to have a more significant impact on student performance than any other variable, including student background and prior achievement.

Similarly, studies also show the widespread benefits of cooperative learning, in which small teams of students use a variety of activities to more deeply understand a subject. Each member is responsible not only for learning what is taught but also for helping his or her teammates learn, so the group become a supportive learning environment.

What follows is a summary of the key research findings for both inquiry-based and cooperative learning. First, let's look at three inquiry-based approaches: project learning (also called project-based learning), problem-based learning, and design-based instruction.

Project-Based Pathways

Project learning involves completing complex tasks that result in a realistic product or presentation to an audience. "A Review of Research on Project-Based Learning," prepared by researcher John Thomas for the Autodesk Foundation, identified five key components of effective project learning:

Centrality to the curriculum

Driving questions that lead students to encounter central concepts

Investigations that involve inquiry and knowledge building

Processes that are student driven, rather than teacher driven

Authentic problems that people care about in the real world

Research on project learning found that student gains in factual learning are equivalent or superior to those of students in more traditional forms of classroom instruction. The goals of project learning, however, aim to take learning one step further by enabling students to transfer their learning to new kinds of situations, illustrated in three studies:

1. In a 1998 study by H.G. Shepherd, fourth and fifth graders completed a nine-week project to define and find solutions related to housing shortages in several countries. In comparison to the control group, the project-learning students scored significantly higher on a critical-thinking test and demonstrated increased confidence in their learning.

2. A more ambitious, longitudinal comparative study by Jo Boaler and colleagues in England in 1997 and 1998 followed students over three years in two schools similar in student achievement and income levels. The traditional school featured teacher-directed whole-class instruction organized around texts, workbooks, and frequent tests in tracked classrooms. Instruction in the other school used open-ended projects in heterogeneous classrooms.

The study found that although students had comparable learning gains on basic mathematics procedures, significantly more project-learning students passed the National Exam in year three than those in the traditional school. Although students in the traditional school "thought that mathematical success rested on being able to remember and use rules," according to the study, the project-learning students developed more flexible and useful mathematical knowledge.

3. A third study, in 2000, on the impact of multimedia projects on student learning, showed similar gains. Students in the Challenge 2000 Multimedia Project, in California's Silicon Valley, developed a brochure informing school officials about problems homeless students face. The students in the multimedia program earned higher scores than a comparison group on content mastery, sensitivity to audience, and coherent design. They performed equally well on standardized test scores of basic skills.

Other short-term, comparative studies demonstrated benefits from project learning, such as increases in the ability to define problems, reason with clear arguments, and plan projects. Additional research has documented improvements in motivation, attitude toward learning, and work habits. Students who struggle in traditional instructional settings have often excelled when working on a project, which better matches their learning style or preference for collaboration.

Students as Problem Solvers

Problem-based-learning approaches are a close cousin of project learning, in which students use complex problems and cases to actively build their knowledge. Much of the research for this approach comes from medical education. Medical students are given a patient profile, history, and symptoms; groups of students generate a diagnosis, conduct research, and perform diagnostic tests to identify causes of the pain or illness. Meta-analyses of multiple studies have found that medical students in problem-based curricula score higher on clinical problem solving and performance.

Use of problem-based cases in teacher education has helped student teachers apply theory and practical knowledge to school contexts and classroom dilemmas; these cases, for example, have enabled teachers to take alternative perspectives to better appreciate cultural diversity.

Studies of problem-based learning suggest that it is comparable, though not always superior, to more traditional instruction in teaching facts and information. However, this approach has been found to be better in supporting flexible problem solving, reasoning skills, and generating accurate hypotheses and coherent explanations.

Learning Through Design

Design-based instruction is based on the premise that children learn deeply when they create products that require understanding and application of knowledge. Design activity involves stages of revisions as students create, assess, and redesign their products. The work often requires collaboration and specific roles for individual students, enabling them to become experts in a particular area.

Design-based approaches can be found across many disciplines, including science, technology, art, engineering, and architecture. Design competitions for students include the FIRST robotics competitions and Thinkquest, for which student teams design and build Web sites on topics including art, astronomy, computer programming, foster care, and mental health.

Thinkquest teams are mentored by a teacher who gives general guidance throughout the design process, leaving the specific creative and technical work to the students. Teams offer and receive feedback during a peer review of the initial submissions and use this information to revise their work. To date, more than 30,000 students have created more than 7,000 Web sites through this competition.

Few studies have used a control group to evaluate the impact of the learning-by-design model, but in a 2000 study by researchers C.E. Hmelo, D.L Holton, and J.L. Kolodner, sixth-grade students designed a set of artificial lungs and built a partially working model of the respiratory system. The learning-by-design students viewed the respiratory system more systemically and understood more about the structures and functions of the system than the control group.

Hmelo and colleagues argued that design challenges need to be carefully planned, and they emphasized the importance of dynamic feedback. They also determined that teachers working on design projects must pay particular attention to finding a balance between students' work on design activities and reflection on what they are learning; that balance allows teachers to guide students' progress, especially in recognizing irrelevant aspects of their research that may take them on unproductive tangents, and in remaining focused on the whole project rather than simply on its completion.

Shifting Ideas, Shifting Roles

A significant challenge to implementing inquiry approaches is the capacity and skill of teachers to undertake this more complex form of teaching. Teachers may think of project learning or problem-based teaching as unstructured and may fail to provide students with proper support and assessment as projects unfold.

When students have no prior experience with inquiry learning, they can have difficulty generating meaningful driving questions and logical arguments and may lack background knowledge to make sense of the inquiry. Students can neglect to use informational resources unless explicitly prompted. They can find it hard to work together, manage their time, and sustain motivation in the face of setbacks or confusion.

One of the principal challenges for teachers, then, is to learn how to juggle a host of new responsibilities -- from carving out the time needed for extended inquiry to developing new classroom-management techniques. They must also be able to illuminate key concepts, balance direct instruction with inquiry teaching, facilitate learning among groups, and develop assessments to guide the learning process. That's a tall order for even the most experienced teacher.

To address these problems, Alice D. Gertzman and Janet L. Kolodner, of the Georgia Institute of Technology, introduced the concept of a design diary in 1996 to support eighth-grade science students in creating a solution for coastal erosion on a specific island off the coast of Georgia. Students had access to stream tables, as well as resources on videotape and the Internet.

In a first study conducted by Gertzman and Kolodner, learning outcomes were disappointing but instructive: The researchers noted that the teacher missed many opportunities to advance learning because she could not listen to all small-group discussions and decided not to have whole-group discussions. They also noted that the students needed more specific prompts for justifying design decisions.

In a second study, the same researchers designed a broader system of tools that greatly improved the learning outcomes. These tools included more structured diary prompts asking for design explanations and the use of whole-class discussions at strategic moments. They also required students to publicly defend their designs earlier in the process. Requiring students to track and defend their thinking focused them on learning and connecting concepts in their design work.

Talented Teams

Inquiry-based learning often involves students working in pairs or groups. Cooperative small-group learning -- that is, students working together in a group small enough that everyone can participate on a collective task -- has been the subject of hundreds of studies. All the research arrives at the same conclusion: There are significant benefits for students who work together on learning activities.

In one comparison by Zhining Qin, David Johnson, and Roger Johnson, of four types of categories for problems presented to individuals and cooperative teams, researchers found that teams outperformed individuals on all types and across all ages. Results varied by how well defined the problems were (a single right answer versus open-ended solutions, such as writing a story) and how much they relied on language. Several experimental studies have shown that groups outperform individuals on learning tasks and that individuals who work in groups do better on later individual assessments.

Cooperative group work benefits students in social and behavioral areas as well, including improvement in student self-concept, social interaction, time on task, and positive feelings toward peers. Researchers say these social and self-concept measures were related to academic outcomes and that low-income students, urban students, and minority students benefited even more from cooperative group work, a finding repeated over several decades.

But effective cooperative learning can be difficult to implement. Researchers identify at least three major challenges: developing group structures to help individuals work together, creating tasks that support useful cooperative work, and introducing discussion strategies that support rich learning.

Productive Collaboration

A great deal of work has been done to specify the kinds of tasks, accountability, and roles that help students collaborate well. In a summary of forty years of research on cooperative learning, Roger and David Johnson, at the University of Minnesota, identified five important elements of cooperation across multiple classroom models:

Positive interdependence

Individual accountability

Structures that promote face-to-face interaction

Social skills

Group processing

Cooperative-learning approaches range from simply asking students to help one another complete individually assigned problem sets to having students collectively define projects and generate a product that reflects the work of the entire group. Many approaches fall between these two extremes.

Credit: Thomas Reis

In successful group learning, teachers pay careful attention to the work process and interaction among students. As Johns Hopkins University's Robert Slavin argues, "It is not enough to simply tell students to work together. They must have a reason to take one another's achievement seriously." Slavin developed a model that focuses on external motivators, such as rewards and individual accountability established by the teacher. He found that group tasks with individual accountability produce stronger learning outcomes.

Stanford University's Elizabeth Cohen reviewed research on productive small groups, focusing on internal group interaction around tasks. She and her colleagues developed Complex Instruction, one of the best-known approaches, which uses carefully designed activities requiring diverse talents and interdependence among group members. Teachers pay attention to unequal participation, a frequent result of status differences among peers, and are given strategies to bolster the status of infrequent contributors. Roles are assigned to encourage equal participation, such as recorder, reporter, materials manager, resource manager, communication facilitator, and harmonizer.

Studies identified social processes that explain how group work supports individual learning, such as resolving differing perspectives through argument, explaining one's thinking, observing the strategies of others, and listening to explanations.

Good Signs

Evidence shows that inquiry-based, collaborative approaches benefit students in learning important twenty-first-century skills, such as the ability to work in teams, solve complex problems, and apply knowledge from one lesson to others. The research suggests that inquiry-based lessons and meaningful group work can be challenging to implement. They require changes in curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices -- changes that are often new for teachers and students.

Teachers need time and a community to organize sustained project work. Inquiry-based instruction can help teachers deepen their repertoire for connecting with their peers and students in new and meaningful ways. That's powerful teaching and learning -- for students and teachers alike.

The Takeaway: Research Findings

A growing body of research has shown the following:

Students learn more deeply when they can apply classroom-gathered knowledge to real-world problems, and when they take part in projects that require sustained engagement and collaboration.

Active-learning practices have a more significant impact on student performance than any other variable, including student background and prior achievement.

Students are most successful when they are taught how to learn as well as what to learn.

Adapted from Powerful Learning: What We Know About Teaching for Understanding, a new book reviewing research on innovative classroom practices, by Linda Darling-Hammond, Brigid Barron, P. David Pearson, Alan H. Schoenfeld, Elizabeth K. Stage, Timothy D. Zimmerman, Gina N. Cervetti, and Jennifer L. Tilson, published in 2008 by Jossey-Bass. Published with support from The George Lucas Educational Foundation. Available at amazon.com.

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Powerful Learning: Studies Show Deep Understanding Derives from Collaborative Methods | Edutopia

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Today's students will enter a job market that values skills and abilities far different from the traditional workplace talents that so ably served their parents and grandparents. They must be able to crisply collect, synthesize, and analyze information, then conduct targeted research and work with others to employ that newfound knowledge.

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Rethinking Learning - Define Your WHY Through Stories

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To transform a classroom into a learner-centered environment is challenging. It is all about the learner and that student voice and choice is necessary for student agency. Personalized learning is all about the learner, starts with the learner, and means the student owns and drives their learning.

What does Student Voice and Choice mean?

Student's voice is difficult to hear in a traditional classroom where the teacher is doing most of the talking and provides direct instruction. If the teacher is the one who provides the choices in the curriculum, then the teacher is still directing the learning. Student choice means students choose how they learn something and, possibly, what they learn.

Students may participate in projects and take responsibility for specific roles within a project, but, in most cases, the teacher determines the topics, roles, and responsibilities. Project-based learning (PBL) has students collaborate and produce an end product together. However, to make PBL personal, the student needs to have a voice in the design of the project and possibly, the process.

What if you take one topic that you love to teach but you just cannot get your students motivated to learn about it? What if they just don't seem to understand the topic no matter how many times you've taught it? Some get it. Some don't. So what can you do to motivate students so they are engaged in learning and want to explore the topic?

The answer: Student Voice and Choice
Ten Steps to Encourage Student Voice and Choice

1. Introduce the topic and share the standards that are normally met with typical instruction.

2. Determine prior knowledge by using a poll, then having students share what they know in small groups, and then sharing out to the whole group one thing they learned about the topic they didn't know before.

3. Show a video or other type of media presentation about the topic. If you know a personal story that might hook your students, share it.

4. Share how you normally taught that topic and invite them to help you redesign how you teach the topic. Tell them you want them to have a say in redesigning how they learn, what the classroom will look like, and your role as a teacher. Let them know that for this topic, you're going to need their help in coming up with the questions, that they will be able to have a place in the class and online to ask questions, ask for help, give feedback, and maybe help others in the classroom.

5. Brainstorm questions about the topic with the whole group. You can use programs like Google Docs or a mind mapping tool like Inspiration or Mindmeister to encourage collaboration. The more questions, the better. Encourage students to use "how" and "why" questions. If they come up with one big question like "why is there war?", ask them to be more specific and come up with 2 to 5 more questions that take that big question deeper. Be sure to tell them that there are no stupid questions.

6. Ask students to work in pairs or small groups to select a big question about the topic they want to explore. Students can choose a group based on the question they want to investigate.

7. Ask groups to design how they want to answer the question(s) and demonstrate an understanding of the topic and question they chose. Have them choose up to five supporting questions that they will also explore to learn more about their topic.

8. Invite each group to write a proposal on how they plan to demonstrate understanding, what resources they will use, how they will present what they learned, and how they will measure if they are successful. Each group can design a rubric to assess teamwork, research, presentation, and other criteria they determine necessary for success.

9. Ask groups to share their proposals with another group who can give them feedback. Then ask another group for feedback and approval. Your job is as guide and facilitator.

10. Give them enough time and resources to do the work they need to do. Watch the excitement of students immersed in the topic.

Watching students take more responsibility by giving them their own voice so they are able to choose how they learn can be scary for teachers. But if you take a chance and try it, you will be amazed what happens. Just be open to some things not working the way you think they will work. You are giving up some control and letting students have more responsibility for their learning. Just watch and enjoy!

About the author

Barbara Bray is a story weaver capturing stories from inspirational people about insightful journeys to discover their purpose. As a creative learning strategist, speaker, coach, and disruptor, Barbara has been trying to transform teaching and learning for over 30 years. Her journey as a teacher, coach, columnist, database developer, and grant writer led to her becoming the owner/founder of Computer Strategies, LLC with its divisions, My eCoach and Rethinking Learning. From 2013 to 2017, Barbara was the past co-founder of Personalize Learning, LLC, and co-authored Make Learning Personal and How to Personalize Learning. In 2017, Barbara became the host of the Rethinking Learning Podcast where she has conversations with inspirational educators, thought leaders, and influencers! At the same time, Barbara started the #rethink_learning Twitter chat. Through all the stories and her journey, Barbara is the author of "Define Your WHY" which is all about owning your story so you live and learn on purpose.

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10 Steps to Encourage Student Voice and Choice - Rethinking Learning

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Ten steps to motivate your students to want to learn. Encourage students to take responsibility for their learning. Give them voice and choice about what they learn.