Erin Scott

For many educators, helping students direct their own learning is a priority. Educator and author Alan November, who has been talking about ways to get students to own their learning for years, draws on his experiences as a teacher, principal and education consultant to tell stories about some of the ideas he sees as integral to education.

November joined Steve Hargadon in a discussion of his new book Who Owns the Learning: Preparing Students for Success in the Digital Age, stressing the importance of global collaboration and the role of technology in making it all possible. Here are a few highlights from their discussion.

SCHOOL STRUCTURE CAN HOLD STUDENTS BACK

School often means rules and regulations that can seem unrelated to the broader goals of education. Students are told to sit down, be still, show up at specific times, and demonstrate knowledge in ways that have nothing to do with the real world. As a case in point, November talked about when he started his teaching career at a reform school for boys where the administration took rules seriously. He discovered that one of his students had been breaking into his classroom to practice coding at night. The student showed a rare passion for a subject that wasn’t even being taught at that time, stayed focused on the task and was self-directed – qualities normally valued by educators. At a time when few people knew even how to use a computer, this boy was teaching himself to code. But none of it mattered to an administration more concerned that he’d broken the rules.

November pointed out the similarities between learning to code and the movement toward instant feedback with some of the newest ed tech tools: engineers can test a string of code to see if it works, retrace steps to figure out where it went wrong if it doesn’t. In the same way, many blended learning methods provide the same kind of instant feedback into the classroom, allowing both the learner and the instructor to understand where to shift direction to gain understanding. November says that instant feedback trend should be embraced as a powerful learning tool.

The lesson from this, he said, is to “teach students how to solve any problem, a general problem solving approach. And teach them to do it in community.” That’s what’s really going to serve them as they go through life. The benefit of technology is that is has opened the door on the scope of global problems that students can involve themselves with, making their problem solving skills immediately relevant and encouraging self-direction.

HAVE STUDENTS LOST THE ABILITY TO DEFINE THE QUESTION?

“We might have robbed kids’ natural ability to take control of defining their own problems by spoon-feeding them little tiny problems one at a time, which ended up with students not being able to take the initiative to define their own,” November said. He illustrated this point by describing a class where he asked students to identify a community problem and then work to come up with a solution. He told them he’d be there to offer tools and to support them through the process. A student raised her hand and told him that it was his job as the teacher to come up with the problems and their job as students to give answers.

Students and teachers alike have been brought up in an educational system that mimics an antiquated job market. The teacher is the boss, managing the work of his student workers who have to produce goods that meet approval, he said. But many people fear that system no longer serves students headed toward a less certain future, one that could necessitate that a student be able to define and create her own job.

“What concerns me is that school is way out of balance,” November said. “We are under an assumption in school that all these kids are going to apply to a job and have a boss that manages their work.” He thinks schools are drastically underestimating children’s capabilities to invent and own their work and by extension the contributions they can make to the world.

TECHNOLOGY RECREATES THE ONE-ROOM SCHOOLHOUSE

As antiquated as it might seem in a world of iPads, mobile devices and 3D printers, November thinks schools should try to embody some of what worked about the one-room schoolhouse. Teachers taught all students regardless of age or level — by definition there had to be differentiation in learning.

“The reality of a one-room classroom is that the older kids are teaching the younger kids,” November said. “And it turns out that to teach, students really have to learn the material well. And the students also take more ownership of the school.” One way to replicate that ownership now is to give students classroom jobs, allowing them to contribute something powerful to the classroom dynamic. “From that beginning I think we can have deeper conversations about children taking more control of defining their roles,” November said.

[RELATED READING: How to Fuel Students' Learning Through Their Interests]

He thinks technology has the power to bring the one-room schoolhouse back. Students can help one another, connect and collaborate globally. They can contribute meaningful work that can matter to real-world situations. “The real revolution is information and global communication, not technology,” November said. Technology is merely the means to access the information and share it in community.

November gave an example of a middle school teacher who had his students contribute to a wiki that supplemented the textbook. They wrote and diagrammed material that would be passed on to students following them. One of the teacher’s former students contacted him while in high school asking to revise the part of the wiki he’d worked on three years previously. He said he’d learned more now and felt a sense of responsibility for what he’d produced. Getting students to care on that level and to be responsible for one another is exactly the kind of shared exploration in community that education should encourage, he said.

Island School

The Island School, a public school in New York City, embodies passion-based learning.

By Kimberly Vincent

We hear a lot about “passion-based” learning, and although in theory it sounds ideal, there are many factors to consider in building an education system around something as intangible as passion. A recent Future of Education talk addressed the topic, with experts in the field weighing in. The group included Angela Maiers, Amy Sandvold, Lisa Nielsen, and George Couros, and the talk was mediated by Steve Hargadon. These are some of the key points that address the issues around passion-based learning that came from the talk, along with some additional thoughts from John Seely Brown, co-author of A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change, and educator Jackie Gerstein.

1. REACH OUT TO THE DISENFRANCHISED. We say that we want creative, passion-driven students, yet we reward the opposite. Standards-based education stifles engagement and passion in students. While drop-outs are considered to be lazy and unmotivated, many are simply not interested because they don’t understand the relevance of what they’re being taught. We’re rewarding students who are best at obedience, memorization, regurgitation, and compliance. And those who do succeed in school often don’t know what to do when they get out. We need to prepare kids to be successful in the real world, not just while in school.
2. SHOW RELEVANCE TO LIFE OUTSIDE SCHOOL. Passion is the narrative of mattering. It’s that simple and that difficult.  Everyone has a deep rooted drive to know that they matter to others and that what they’re doing matters. When you’re doing work that matters, with people who matter, you’re willing to suffer and study more. Passion-based learning is not about matching students with topics that interest them, it’s about presenting subjects to students in a way that’s relevant. People gain empowerment when they’re doing work that matters and is respected.  Angela Maiers suggests that a class essay rubric may seem irrelevant for some, and that having students surf the web to identify writing standards that are “worthy of the world” may engage them to take ownership of their writing.
3. INDOCTRINATE PASSION INTO THE SYSTEM. We must switch from a control narrative in the classroom to a passion narrative. While our education system allows continuity between grade levels, provides a streamlined performance metric, and “teacher-proofs” schools, assessment-based education can quell the creative process in teachers.  Lisa Nielsen writes in her Innovative Educator blog: “Are we going to lose another excellent, passion-driven teacher to a compulsory system of education that as Seth Godin so aptly expresses, ‘only values compliance not initiative, because, of course, that’s what’s easiest to measure.’” School mandates paralyze educators from taking a close look at their passion for learning.  School administrators should support teachers and empower them to be creative. Teachers and leadership, as exemplified by those from Aurora High School in Ohio, can read books like Passion-Driven Classrooms (written by panelists Angela Maiers and Amy Sandvold) to discover ways to use more passion in their classrooms.The Island School is an example of a public-financed school in New York City that’s implemented a schoolwide enrichment model focusing on talent development and nurturing multiple intelligences.
4. TRY USING THE SCHOOLWIDE ENRICHMENT MODEL. Passion-based learning is about finding a “hero,” learning what makes him/her successful, and acquiring the practices and the norms of established practitioners in that field.  The Schoolwide Enrichment Model identifies student strengths, nurtures skills, and creates authentic opportunities for students to utilize these skills not just as students, but as practicing professionals providing experiences and opportunities to work and learn with others in the fields in which they are interested. If a student takes interest in the culinary arts, watching the 60 Minutes interview of Jose Andres, following up on studies of molecular gastronomy, volunteering at a local soup kitchen and exchanging recipes with a network of cooks is far more enriching than simply taking a cooking class. Jackie Gerstein said: “I realized that it becomes much more than learning about the culinary arts.  It becomes a way of being in the world, the dispositions that contributes to success as a culinary artist.”
5. DIGITAL MEDIA IS KEY. Students can read and view media about their heroes and possibly even connect directly with them. John Seely Brown, a notable passion-based proponent and keynote at the New Media Consortium this past summer, says that passion involves an extreme performance with a deep questioning disposition. Without digital media, this quest is not possible in formal education.
6. TAP INTO THE WISDOM OF YOUR TRUSTED PEERS. Social media and Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) are necessary. Teachers need to publish their innovative work and share it with their personal learning networks. It’s also important for teachers to help students get connected to PLNs via social media.
7. BECOME A DIGITAL CITIZENS. If for no other reason, then to be able to guide students. Students need to be shown what’s appropriate and instructive with social media in and out of the classroom. Schools’ banning of social media sites impedes this process. Having teachers and students learn side-by-side can provide great opportunities for building respect and openness.
8. PASSION IS INFECTIOUS. Being around passionate people is the best way to become passionate. A passion-driven teacher is a model for her students. Teachers must be able to lead in the areas that they’re passionate about (whether this be in the classroom or after school). They must demonstrate that they have lives outside of school and that they are well-balanced people. Being transparent with students and building relationships with them beyond the classroom can help drive learning – students work harder with people who matter to them. The Science Leadership Academy, for example, uses Facebook as a means of connecting students and teachers to each others’ interests. Students and teachers even do things together outside of the classroom.
9. CONNECT WITH PARENTS. Building relationships between parents and schools is crucial. George Couros says that having a pre-conference at the beginning of the school year with parents allows teachers and administrators to listen to parents talk about their kids and gives parents a chance to tell the school what their competencies are and where their expertise lies. Teachers can then create “resident expert” walls. By identifying strengths and talents of parents, parents gain a sense of recognition and human value – they feel engaged. This leads to opportunities for parents to teach topics that they love within the school.