Think back to a time when you were learning something new that really stuck with you and made a lasting impact. How did you learn new skills? What were the conditions? What resources did you use? Why?  

As I work with diverse educators and talk with students about their own powerful learning experiences, there are common characteristics that always surface, including:

• personal connection
• opportunity to exert agency
• clear goals and accountability
•  an inquiry-based approach
• collaboration
• authenticity
• productive struggle
• use of models
• time for critique, revision, and reflection.

Yet, in school, far too often we are focused on cramming for a test, covering content getting through textbooks, averaging grades, isolated courses, memorizing facts and figures disconnected from application, and a one size fits all approach, which is too fast for some and too slow for others.  The challenge I see today is that there is a misalignment between what we know– and have experienced as powerful learning–and what we actually do in schools.

Creating alignment between authentic learning experiences and what we do in school is a critical aspect of a learner-centered model as it gives purpose and relevance to the knowledge and skills that students are learning and focuses on the application rather than the sole memorization.

When we focus on learners, connect to their interests, needs, and goals, we can create experiences that ignite curiosity, develop passion, and unleash genius.  Learner-centered practices including PBL, community based learning, real-world problem-solving, experiential learning, work-based and place-based learning, student portfolios and exhibitions, makerspaces and design-centered learning focus on how we learn. I am continually inspired by the many educators who are working within the confines of an outdated system to create authentic learning experiences for their students while simultaneously pushing the boundaries to create new and better systems.

Connecting our Aspirations to Practice

Lewisburg is a K-8 school in Kentucky where students engage in both exploratory programs to gain exposure and access to different experts and community members and do their own passion projects to explore ideas of interest to them and solve problems that they find important.  As I talked to the middle school students about school, many of them shared loved the Ranger Academy where all students were able to choose topics of interest for exploration such as sewing, building, cooking, community service projects. They shared different student-led projects that they had just completed. One group shared that they had put on a fundraiser to raise money for Ally, a student in the school who needed money for a health condition. Three girls put together a program called New Kids on the Block to ensure each new student had a person to connect and sit with at lunch along with a welcome bag of goodies to make them feel like part of the community.  Another group saw a need for their teachers’ desks and workspaces to be more organized and worked with their teachers to build organizers for the teachers’ desks.

Although they acknowledge that sometimes it’s hard to collaborate with others, and it can take a while to figure out how to do a project, nor do you always get it right, they learned more than just content knowledge. They loved learning about new things, working from their strengths, meeting new people, seeing different perspectives, and above all, engaging in personally meaningful work addressing real challenges in their community.

As Paul Mullins, Superintendent of Logan County schools shared with me, “We aren’t just creating students, we are creating better citizens.” I couldn’t agree more. In talking to these students, it was evident that they are already able to engage in our communities productively and work to make our communities and world a better place. 

Why Authentic Learning Matters

If you recall your own impactful learning experiences, you will likely acknowledge that it wasn’t always a clear path from point A to point B and that you learn through trial and error, multiple inputs, and experience. The push and pull of the desire to accomplish a goal can be a motivating factor to acquire new skills and knowledge. As such, authentic learning is about creating the context for developing skills because they are critical to the task and the individual’s growth.  Lewisburg has intentionally chosen to create authentic learning experiences that prioritize learners and that integrate the basic skills aligned to standards and put them in a context that matters. While engaging in authentic projects, not only do students learn and improve in their numeracy, reading, speaking, writing and communicating, and critical thinking but they are also engaging in activities that require them to use these skills in ways that are authentic and meaningful. 

More and more conversations about the need to teach (and assess) both academic standards as well as lifelong skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, and collaboration are happening. This focus on both academic and social emotional learning is a recognition of the importance of teaching the whole child. While this is important, the tendency is to continue to add on and do more. The difference here is the goal is not to keep adding more or cover it all, it is about making intentional choices to prioritize, integrate and do things differently based on your vision and values to help achieve you achieve your desired goals.