Making learning a better experience

By Joe Graba, July guest blogger

Over the last 30 or so years, we have greatly escalated our expectations for our public education system. What is most curious about this effort is that while we have elevated our expectations for our public education system, we have almost unknowingly assumed that the system itself does not need to be changed in any significant way. We seem to assume that learning can be significantly better without school being significantly different.

We know today that students vary enormously in their early development, in their interests, aptitudes, motivation and learning styles, but we continue to use a system that was designed more than a century ago when our expectations for learning were very different. Even while we acknowledge this growing diversity of our young people and state firmly our commitment to these higher expectations — we continue to predominantly depend on a one-size-fits-all system that no longer serves us well. 

I believe that motivation is key to meeting our escalated goals for learning in this new century. Learning is a natural part of living for almost all young people. As Jack Frymier said: “Students learn when they are motivated to learn. If they want to learn, they will. If they don’t, you can’t make ’em.” Students don’t dislike or resist learning. What many dislike and resist is schooling as it is experienced today. Even many of our better students find school boring, unchallenging and even irrelevant. Others of our less focused students find themselves lost, confused, frustrated and humiliated by their inability to reach anything approaching success. In sum, many students find schooling diminishes their motivation and enjoyment of learning.

We need to greatly diversify our approaches to helping students learn. Fortunately, there are some learning models that provide students and parents with different options, including project-based learning and online learning. In general, the more options students have, the more likely they will be to find an approach that fits their individual needs. There is a spectrum of variations emerging that I believe will eventually help us to reach the ultimate goal of customizing the learning experience for every student.

This does not mean that students get to decide what they are going to learn. Customization can take a variety of forms. For example, some students seem to do well in small, personalized learning communities. The new and emerging technologies make these small learning communities more economically feasible and also can provide multiple approaches to learning the same content. Simply presenting topics in different ways can be very helpful to students with different learning styles. Much of this capability is still under development but it is coming along quite rapidly. Most all of us realize how adept our young people are at using these new technologies.

We also need to be open to different kinds of achievement. While it is reasonable to insist that all students learn the basic skills of reading, math and writing and some reasonable level in certain other areas, we should also provide for students to explore in-depth — areas they find particularly interesting and stimulating.

We should finally open up the pace of learning as well. We have many students who are sitting in classrooms coasting along at a pace that bores them. We should let these students move forward into their next levels and subjects if they can demonstrate that they are ready. It is just amazing to watch high school athletic coaches reach down into the junior highs for students that have outstanding skills in various sports. These coaches use competency as the basis for moving these athletes upward into senior high sports. In these same districts, there are dozens, maybe hundreds of students who are locked in a learning program that uses only time as the basis for upward movement. This has major negative impact on their enthusiasm for school.

These and other innovations will have an impact on the motivation of many students. The main point is that we need schools and learning programs that motivate our students.

All school design and education policy should be analyzed for its impact on student motivation. Students have enormous discretionary effort that they will use to expand their learning, if we create schools that support, excite and motivate them.

For more on these and other related topics, see the latest Education|Evolving policy paper, Innovation-based Systemic Reform.

Comments

[Ananth Pai]

I am an elementary teacher in White Bear Lake, MN. I use technology (websites, multi-player games, Nintendo DS learning games, digital voice recorders, etc.) as well as books and other traditional media. Students' abilities in a class of twenty or more, ranges from 1% ile to 99% ile relative to grade level material. To address that, one needs to have scalable curriculum that is nearest to each students learning level at any given time. If not, with traditional media alone, schools dish out a curriculum that is a design match to the problem - the degree of variance in abilities among students in a classroom. NY's school of one is focusing on this issue. I am addressing that in my room. Students in my class want to see it replicated. See their petition and a TV news video at http://sites.google.com/site/teamdrillhead

[Joe Graba]

Hi Ananth. Thank you for your comment. It sounds as though you are doing a great deal to customize the learning experience for your students. You are to be commended for your efforts! I do believe that there are many teachers that are making tremendous efforts to make this happen in their classrooms. Because of the structure we used in elementary schools, I believe this happens more often in elementary schools than it does in secondary. Our long tradition of using courses and credits and teachers and students moving from class to class make this much more difficult in secondary schools. In addition, several aspects of customizing learning require changes in policies that are beyond the reach of individual teachers and individual schools.

Please keep up the great work.