Deeper Learning
5 Key Culture Premises of Deeper Learning
5 Key Culture Premises of Deeper Learning
We must choose depth: “The tension is inescapable, and the choice is unavoidable: go with depth...Decades of research bear this out: when deep, conceptual understanding is attained, learning is enduring, flexible, and real....We must rid ourselves of any residual notions that education is the transmission of needed knowledge. Rather, we are teaching skills, and one skill most generally: how to ride a tsunami of knowledge whose future content we can’t even begin to imagine.”
We must choose depth: “The tension is inescapable, and the choice is unavoidable: go with depth...Decades of research bear this out: when deep, conceptual understanding is attained, learning is enduring, flexible, and real....We must rid ourselves of any residual notions that education is the transmission of needed knowledge. Rather, we are teaching skills, and one skill most generally: how to ride a tsunami of knowledge whose future content we can’t even begin to imagine.”
- Transforming Schools, p. 8-9
Student-centered learning shifts the focus of instruction from teacher to student, requiring students to be active, empowered participants in their own learning. Students engage in demanding tasks, work collaboratively on issues they are passionate about, and develop their own drive to extend their knowledge and skills in new ways.
Student-centered learning shifts the focus of instruction from teacher to student, requiring students to be active, empowered participants in their own learning. Students engage in demanding tasks, work collaboratively on issues they are passionate about, and develop their own drive to extend their knowledge and skills in new ways.
- In Search of Deeper Learning, Transforming Schools, Creating Cultures of Thinking
“...many of our oldest traditions of learning, particularly learning by doing and apprenticeship, remain the most robust ways to induct a learner into the increasing complexity and depth of a field.”
“...many of our oldest traditions of learning, particularly learning by doing and apprenticeship, remain the most robust ways to induct a learner into the increasing complexity and depth of a field.”
- “The Deeper Learning Dozen”, p. 6
Student culture reflects staff culture. We cannot succeed unless all levels of the SFUSD system are aligned - in talk and in action. “...one part of a system cannot reach its potential if it is not working in harmony with other parts of the whole. If, for example, it is the mission of a school to teach students how to collaborate productively, then teachers and leaders must themselves be working to collaborate productively… Educational organizations cannot deepen learning without striving to be... “consistent throughout the entire system - self, classroom, school, district, and eventually the community.”
Student culture reflects staff culture. We cannot succeed unless all levels of the SFUSD system are aligned - in talk and in action. “...one part of a system cannot reach its potential if it is not working in harmony with other parts of the whole. If, for example, it is the mission of a school to teach students how to collaborate productively, then teachers and leaders must themselves be working to collaborate productively… Educational organizations cannot deepen learning without striving to be... “consistent throughout the entire system - self, classroom, school, district, and eventually the community.”
- Transforming Schools, p. 13
Powerful learning moments, while essential for Deeper Learning, do not equate to Deeper Learning. Powerful learning can happen in an hour, in a particular classroom moment. Deeper learning, however, requires a lengthier trajectory - “arcs of learning that develop over time.”
Powerful learning moments, while essential for Deeper Learning, do not equate to Deeper Learning. Powerful learning can happen in an hour, in a particular classroom moment. Deeper learning, however, requires a lengthier trajectory - “arcs of learning that develop over time.”
- In Search of Deeper Learning, p. 16