What if young people designed their own learning?
Megan O’Connell/
The Conversation
There are no year levels or set curriculum. Students move on to the next stage when they are ready, irrespective of age. They partner with teachers to design what they learn and how they are assessed. Traditional subjects are replaced with real-world problems. Kids are still learning maths and English – they’re applying their knowledge to build and race a billycart and to market products at a local fair.
Students develop their capabilities and give back to their communities. They might be out revegetating the local creek, mentoring preschoolers or restoring furniture. Students are totally absorbed in what they are doing, studying areas they have chosen which clearly matter to them. Four topics that catch your eye are the challenges of migration for kids, why the internet is changing punctuation, what it’s like to be an apprentice, and an exploration of different school systems across the world. Students are creating products, producing blogs and sophisticated multimedia presentations.
Classes have students of different ages. Teachers from different subjects are working together. At times during the week, lessons last for a whole morning or afternoon. Rather than having an identical timetable to others in their year, students here have a personal plan, which is updated twice a week. Students have the flexibility to work part-time, engage in physical activity and community service. They create electronic portfolios to show what they have learned. In some cases these exist as “open badges”, digital proof that they have reached certain levels of
accomplishment. The current system is clearly not working for a large number of students. evels of disengagement within schools are high and increase as students pass through secondary school. To carry on batching children into year groups and teaching them the same content partly explains why there are high levels of disengagement, stress and underachievement. Schools recognise that today’s complex world needs students who are capable in different ways. There is growing disquiet about the capacity of education to meet future skill needs and a recognition that we need students with a different set of capabilities. The American educational reformer John Dewey was making these kinds of arguments a century ago in his book Democracy and Education.
Dewey believed that students thrive in an environment that allows them to interact with the curriculum, and that all students should have the opportunity to take part in their own learning. Creativity expert Ken Robinson became a TED-talk phenomenon as a result of his savage critique of assembly-line schooling. He called for a radical rethink of the school system so that it nurtures, rather than undermines, creativity. Where once teachers imparted knowledge and skills for an age-related syllabus, today they need to be coaches, critics and experts in learning.
They need to be able to ensure that students get the very best out of their time in class. Teachers need to strike the balance between encouraging independent learning and providing students with guidance. They have a key role in cultivating confident, curious learners who can take risks and learn from their mistakes.