What Is Deeper Learning?

I am currently participating in Deeper Learning MOOC (DLMOOC), a free online course that lasts for nine weeks. It will be the second, massively-open online course—or MOOC—for me. The first one was Learning Creative Learning, which I blogged about last year (starting with the post "The Biggest Class I've Ever Attended"). Once again, I am excited to be sharing ideas and learning from others who feel as passionate about education as I do.

The first week has been spent on introductions and setting up subgroups, but online discussions are already getting underway.

So, what exactly is deeper learning? For a definition, I began by referring to the suggested readings for Week 1. According to an infographic on Deeper Learning:

"Deeper Learning ensures that students master core academic content, think critically, solve complex problems, work collaboratively, communicate effectively, direct their own learning, and develop an academic mindset." 

Two phrases contained within that definition—core academic content and academic mindset—require additional explanation, but allow me to return to them later. Scanning the rest of the infographic, I see cute cartoons that represent four types of (presumably, deeper) learning:

1. Learn! Personalized Learning
2. Do! Project-Based Learning
3. Apply! Work-Based Learning
4. Show! Competency-Based Learning

I imagine the exclamation marks after the commands (Learn! Do! Apply! Show!) are intended to convey excitement, but I feel as though I'm being issued directives. I wonder how students will feel if they are told to "Do!" or "Apply!"without being given much choice in the matter?  

Also, while I'd like to think that "personalized learning" means students will be allowed to learn at their own pace and make meaningful decisions regarding what and how they learn, the mention of "core academic content" makes me skeptical. I'm not sure exactly how much personalization will be permitted if learning is core-driven rather than student-driven. No doubt, there's value in learning from projects, real-world experiences, and student demonstrations of competency, but I feel what is most important is for the students to be the ones asking for those activities. If they are mandated by teachers, how might that impact the students' opportunities for deeper learning?

Fortunately, the infographic was not the only suggested material for this week. "Mindsets and Student Agency," by Eduardo Briceno (co-founder and CEO of Mindset Works), presents what I feel is a better definition for deeper learning:

"Deeper learning requires students to think, question, pursue, and create—to take agency and ownership of their learning. When they do, they acquire deeper understanding and skills, and most important, they become more competent learners in and out of school."

Now, this makes perfect sense to me as a home educator. When Bricena writes, "We can’t force students to develop agency and drive their own learning. It must come from within," I am immediately reminded of the writings of unschooling advocate John Holt (author of Learning All the Time, How Children Learn, and more). Holt believed in nurturing childrens' interests, or to use his words:

“We can best help children learn, not by deciding what we think they should learn and thinking of ingenious ways to teach it to them, but by making the world, as far as we can, accessible to them, paying serious attention to what they do, answering their questions—if they have any—and helping them explore the things they are most interested in.”

When I first heard about John Holt, I was not familiar with the concept of learning mindsets in the formal way that Briceno describes them. However,  I recognize them as the qualities I've observed in young children who have never attended school (that is, in homeschoolers). In the article Mindsets and Student Agency, Briceno defines four essential mindsets or beliefs about learning:

• “I can change my intelligence and abilities through effort.” (The Growth Mindset)
• “I can succeed.” (The Self-efficacy Mindset)
• "I belong in this learning community." (The Sense of Belonging Mindset)
• "This work has value and purpose for me." (The Relevance Mindset)

Knowing that your efforts matter, believing you are capable of succeeding, having a sense that your interest in learning is shared by the people around you, and being able to do work that is relevant and meaningful—none of these seem like extraordinary or unreasonable expectations for a child to have, and yet researchers have identified students who lack them. The question now is, "How do we cultivate these mindsets in all students, given that these mindsets are the foundation for deeper learning?"

I believe Holt was keenly aware of the learning mindsets, although he didn't identify them as such. For example, consider his description of "the child who learns quickly":

“Over the years, I have noticed that the child who learns quickly is adventurous. She's ready to run risks. She approaches life with arms outspread. She wants to take it all in. She still has the desire of the very young child to make sense out of things. She's not concerned with concealing her ignorance or protecting herself. She's ready to expose herself to disappointment and defeat. She has a certain confidence. She expects to make sense out of things sooner or later. She has a kind of trust.”

Holt argued that these qualities were naturally present in all of us but later stifled when students were subjected to a system of rewards and punishments, manipulated into learning what others thought they should know.

As a home educator, I have felt frustration every time I've been asked, "Shouldn't you be required to use a curriculum provided by the school?" Here again I quote John Holt:

“. . . schools assume that children are not interested in learning and are not much good at it, that they will not learn unless made to, that they cannot learn unless shown how, and that the way to make them learn is to divide up the prescribed material into a sequence of tiny tasks to be mastered one at a time . . . "

If the goal is a student-centered, self-directed, real-world education, then I believe a one-size-fits-all, mandatory curriculum is perhaps not the best method. In some ways, nurturing a child's natural curiosity is easier than adhering to a curriculum. You go through life together, exploring the world, asking questions, building things, testing theories, acquiring skills, reporting on discoveries. Over time, skills are acquired, knowledge is gained, and a clear pattern of growth and development emerges. The hard part is resisting the urge to force the process to conform to an arbitrary scope and sequence chart.