Curriculum

With so much of technology available to our students, it is interesting how difficult it is to lead them to learn what we feel is most important for them to learn. While self-guided learning helps student stay engaged, what students choose to learn may not always lead to profitable ends. For example, a student that is fascinated with mathematics and chooses to spend several years mastering its techniques and definitions may or may not  develop the skills necessary to apply the knowledge to meaningful, real-world context (aka - a job). In other words, it is necessary for all of us to learn things that we are not necessarily interested in, but that are just as critical to our productive participation in society. Learning is profitable only when it increases our capacity to contribute positively to the society in which we find ourselves.

Perhaps the key to teaching these less-interesting ideas is to help our learners experience them in their own context. A process of Learn-Act-Share can be a very profitable approach to these subjects.

1. Learn what must be learned.
2. Act on what is learned through projects, goals, assignments, etc.
3. Share what was learned with teachers and peers

This is an incredible process that is both scalable and topic-neutral. This process also invites greater levels of mentoring and coaching from the teacher. This process is also described here.