Is school actually meeting the current and future needs of our learners?

I walk the hallways at breaks and lunchtime and I overhear many students’ conversations. ‘… is so boring’, ‘I don’t see the point in …’, ‘I don’t want to go to …’. I observe students desperately asking their friends for answers to worksheets and textbook questions. Are they interested in learning or motivated by the threat of losing marks? I see tired and stressed faces. Did they stay up late at night engrossed in their learning? Or were they going through the drudgery of homework and cramming for a test?

CC photo by: carolyntiry

I walk into classrooms and see students quietly gazing out the window, secretly glancing at their phones and mindlessly doodling on paper. Are they distracted or disengaged? I bump into regular ‘hall wandering’ students while classes are in session. Some tell me they are ‘going to the bathroom’; while others say they’re ‘getting supplies from their locker’. Are they being truthful or do they simply require a break from class where they can get up and move around? I meet with students in my office. Some of them display such lifeless, apathetic expressions. Why are their spirits so defeated? Why are they simply going through the motions of school? Others demonstrate frustration and negativity towards school. Why has school become a source of their frustration? Why are they so ‘anti-school’?

“Our schools must equip learners with the skills necessary to not only adapt to but also influence this rapidly changing world they are growing up in. We need to move away from a system where subjects are taught in isolation of each of other, where content delivery is the focus, and where the teacher is seen as the expert and is the one who asks most of the questions.”

Now don’t get me wrong. I know these examples don’t describe all students. But it does describe the norm for some of the students whom I work closely with. It’s clear that school just isn’t meeting the needs of ‘these’ kids.

Which brings me to a larger question. Is school actually meeting the current and future needs of our learners?

When I look at today’s high schools, I still recognize them as the same basic model as the one I went through over 20 years ago. And then I consider the world in which we live in. It’s a faster and more automated world, where knowledge is at our fingertips and information can travel across the globe at the push of a button. We are blessed with luxuries all around us. Smartphones, sports cars, online shopping and banking just to name a few. But this rapid progress and advancement have created changes in the workplace and society that demand new skills and competencies. Routine, assembly line type work that requires learning simple repetitive skills and memorizing basic information has become a thing of the past. The application of knowledge, critical thinking and creative problem solving is now more important as the world of work shifts to non-routine tasks.

This places new demands on education. Our schools must equip learners with the skills necessary to not only adapt to but also influence this rapidly changing world they are growing up in. We need to move away from a system where subjects are taught in isolation of each of other, where content delivery is the focus, and where the teacher is seen as the expert and is the one who asks most of the questions.

“Rather than asking learners to work towards one ‘right’ answer, we must grow comfortable with there being many answers to students’ questions. And, our practices must support the idea that learning is a process, often one that is messy, non-linear, and will likely include unlearning and relearning.”

We need to create a system that encourages students to pursue personally meaningful challenges and initiatives that are relevant to their lives, values students asking big questions to which the teacher doesn’t have the answer, provides students some autonomy to follow their own inquiries and enables students to amplify and share their learning through the use of technology. Similar to real life, learning at school should integrate the many traditional disciplines, allowing students to shift naturally and apply knowledge and skills from different disciplines in order to answer their questions. Rather than asking learners to work towards one ‘right’ answer, we must grow comfortable with there being many answers to students’ questions. And, our practices must support the idea that learning is a process, often one that is messy, non-linear, and will likely include unlearning and relearning.

To put it bluntly, the pressure is now on us to collaborate on new designs for learning that will engage both studentsand teachers!

We need to stop worrying about what others think school should look like and start imagining what it could look like. We mustn’t shy away from big steps or our bold vision. Now, more than ever, we need innovation in education!

Cross posted on the Canadian Education Association blog.

Low Floors & High Ceilings: A Universal Design for Learning

In the final days before the winter break, I visited a Psychology 11 class and had the opportunity to view a collection of student projects on the topic of drugs. It was clear that students had invested considerable effort into their projects but even more impressive was their depth of understanding and the level of confidence with which they shared their learning with me.

While this is a topic that Psychology 11 students have studied in the past, this year Ms. Morrison had her students approach their learning in a different way.




She began by asking her students to describe what they knew about drugs and their perceptions about drugs in the local community. This immediately made the topic relevant and proved to be an excellent way of activating students' prior knowledge and gaining their interest in the project. It also served as a great way to generate student questions and uncover some of their misconceptions.

Next, she laid out the learning goals for the project and asked students to address these goals as they researched their respective topics. Rather than delivering the content, she allowed her students to uncover the information as they gathered background about a specific drug. While Ms. Morrison provided a list of suggested resources to get her students started, she allowed them the freedom to access information in different ways from a variety of sources. Students accessed books, magazines, websites, videos, etc.  


Finally, students had the opportunity to choose how they would demonstrate their learning. Many students chose to create posters in which they included a variety of images, drawings and text to represent their knowledge. Others produced videos. 

One student elected to create a painting and include a QR code linking to a documentary she had watched. Listen to her describe her project.















Another student created a box covered in digital images he had designed himself. Listen to him describe his project and reflect on his learning experience.







And read another student's feedback on the learning process she engaged in during the project.

What I observed and heard from these students confirmed what I had heard days earlier at a workshop on Differentiation and Universal Deisgn for Learning (UDL) facilitated by Leyton Schnellert. It was great to hear Leyton share much of what he modelled 17 years ago when we co-taught Science and Technology 11. Leyton stressed that our plan for student learning should have 'LOW FLOORS and HIGH CEILINGS'. He pointed out that teaching to diversity is nothing more than 'good teaching'...it should include approaches that invite all learners in by providing different access points.

What was particularly fitting about the Psychology project is that it exemplified the three main principles that Leyton suggested we should focus on in our learning designs.

Multiple Means of Engagement: It captured the interest of learners and motivated them to explore their topic.

Mutliple Means of Representation: Learners were provided flexibility as to how and from where they acquired knowledge and information.

Multiple Means of Expression: Learners were encouraged to choose a means of demonstrating their learning that best suited them.

Below is a diagram from the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) that provides a visual representation of the main UDL principles Leyton shared.