21st Century Learning... Intellectual Freedom and Structure

The BC Ministry of Education has rolled out the new "21st Century Learning" direction, a large component of which is self directed learning. This is clearly a move that we need to be making... or is it?

I worked in many roles (teacher, advisor, department head, vice principal) at Frances Kelsey Secondary from 2000-2008. The philosophy of the school has been to educate within a self directed/self paced model since 1995 and we worked hard to make it work for students with much tweaking and re-tweaking.

There was one particular project where grade 9 students would complete a self directed project on the topic of Child Labour using examples from the 1800's Industrial Revolution and modern times to gain credit in both English and Social Studies. The project was well designed and well explained as the teacher librarian took the lead on organizing sessions with the classroom teachers. It was a great learning experience for some and for others it turned into the  biggest roadblock to completing those courses as they did not get it done. Why?

Interestingly, some of the students who struggled with school completed just fine, while some of the kids who struggled were high achieving. It wasn't necessarily about ability. It also wasn't only about effort, as some of the hardest working students breezed through this topic easily while others became frustrated trying to figure out where to start and what to do. There was also the biggest challenge of all, which was how to create a sense of urgency to get it done... putting in our timelines while trying to respect the kids' goal of planning their learning. As with most of us, procrastination is a powerful enemy.

It was important to have that project in the curriculum for those courses. Kids learned about planning, research and organizing their learning. However, I would not want to have had another similar project back to back with this one. Maybe that is the point. Self direction is great, but it cannot be all the time.

Think of yourself. I enjoy taking on a project where I see a need and an opportunity, but in between these endeavors it is comforting to have the tasks someone else is requiring that I do. The real challenge is to find the balance freedom to design your learning within a framework of structure.