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Planning Engaging Learning Experiences
"Engaging is synonymous with interesting and compelling. Experiences produce personal insights that are deeper and longer lasting than explanation."
~ Larry Ainsworth
"Levels of student performance improve when instruction focuses on: active learning, real-world contexts, higher-level thinking skills, extended writing, and demonstration."
~ Robert Marzano
Purpose
"For students, a rigorous curriculum ought to be both engaging and experiential. It needs to provide them with powerful learning opportunities intentionally designed to motivate, challenge, and support them in making "aha's" and connections on their own." (Ainsworth)
"A rigorous, 21st-century curriculum ought to provide students with a dynamic blend of customary learning activities and authentic and engaging learning experiences." (Ainsworth)
Attributes of Engaging Learning Experiences
- Linked to priority and supporting standards
- Connected to the Essential Questions and Big Ideas
- Authentic (genuine, valid, real)
- Relevant to life situations and contexts
- Interdisciplinary
- Use embedded informational technologies
- Highly motivated, not routine
- Mentally stimulating, thought-provoking
- Incorporates the full spectrum of thinking: reasoning, application, analysis, synthesis, creativity, self-assessment, and reflection
- Includes both collaborative and individual work
- Be Creative
- Establishes The "Why" for Learning
Resources
All information in the Curriculum Design Process is based on the The Leadership and Learning Center Training Manual: Planning for Rigorous Curriculum Design (2010) and from the text from Larry Ainsworth - Ainsworth, L. (2010). Rigorous curriculum design. Englewood, Colo.: Lead Learn Press.
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