Frequently Asked

Equity

It is amazing to look at the data from a very large survey in the Ottawa-Carleton School district (2020 School Climate Survey) when students from grades 7-12  responded to the question:

“Have you experienced being stereotyped, prejudice or discrimination at school as a result of your”:

Clothing 31%

Grades or achievement level 32%

Ethnic background 21%

Race 18%

Family income 15%

Family structure 14%

Religion or faith 14%

First language 13%

Gender identity 11%

Sexual Orientation 11%

Other reasons 10%

Indigenous background 5%

As educators, there are some parts of our society that we can not really control but grades and achievement levels is in our wheelhouse, big time!

When we look at the data it is clear that we should be doing a better job at making sure every student is able to be successful at school.  And perhaps more to the point is making sure that no student feels discriminated against because they are not able to be successful at school.

At this time the teacher-directed education model is often the only choice a student has in their learning.

Students, and especially students from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds need more choice in how they learn.

When students can spend at least part of their day working in experiential and student-led ways this opens the door to learning for a great many more of our vulnerable and diverse populations…because they can learn in ways that they are comfortable with, often on their own schedules and with cultural and community values in place.

Building Student Engagement

Student engagement is kind of what education is all about in 2023!

Strong student engagement is 100% built into experiential, student-led learning because when the student is directing their own learning they are engaged at new levels and in so many ways.

Students who are not engaged in any aspects of the traditional school model will engage if given the opportunity to learn and grow within the experiential, student-led model.  

When they find success with this model, they will begin to engage in other parts of their school day as well.

It is very important to note as well, that even if students are only working in experiential, student-led ways a few times a week, engagement in all other parts of the curriculum improves.

Developing Learning Skills (life skills) 

The process of experiential, student-led learning is really having students learn how to learn. This is not just an academic process but actually a different way of looking at learning, and I would argue a cornerstone of the 21st century learning model. The development of learning skills is a huge part of the experiential journey and perhaps the most important.

When students complete work in experiential ways they develop and build on all six of their learning skills in real-life ways and in ways that reflect the reality of learning in the 21st century.

As these learning skills develop they greatly increase the student’s ability to complete more and more work in experiential ways they also spill over into better work in all other areas of the students’ school day.

Building confidence in the student’s individual learning style

Confidence in academic ability and confidence in working with learning styles that best suit individual students is absolutely crucial for all students.

Some students are a perfect fit for learning in the traditional teacher-directed classroom. Many students are not and these students suffer a loss of confidence through only being exposed to the one learning style.

Experiential, student-led work in a virtual setting allows the student to learn in their own way, at their own pace, place, and time. This ultimately leads to students getting a better idea of how, when, where they learn best…this in turn builds the academic confidence that is so crucial to success.

Differentiation

Differentiation is a huge key to teaching in today’s classroom with such a diverse student population.

When students can guide their own learning and do that through real-life experiences, the differentiation is built in. 

Options for Post Secondary Education 

The ultimate goal here is having the student find success in the regular classroom and keep all their options for post-secondary school open…but there is a reason academics is not first in the list.

In a sense, when the student is engaged, has confidence, has developed strong learning skills, and knows their best learning styles, getting the academics in is the easy part.

Further to this, when students learn how to learn and develop the learning skills and styles along the way, they put themselves in a position to learn anything they want with a laptop or phone and an internet connection is a pretty powerful academic argument.

Classroom Management and Behaviour

As a classroom teacher for many years, this is not something you always see in the academic papers but it sure is important to us on a daily basis!

Many classroom management issues arise when the work being done is either too hard or too easy for that student.  Other issues can arise when students do not feel a bond with the educator based on respect and partnership.

Experiential, student-led work ensures that every student in the class is working on something right at their level and something that engages them.

This model also works to establish better rapport between the educator and the student.

This means that many classroom management situations are mitigated during the experiential learning time but also in all other times of the school day.

This concept starts with the recognition that much of our present teaching model is based around the needs of the 20th century Industrial Revolution.  Passive learning, direct teacher instruction, memorization, and only learning during school hours and with specific school structures in place, are tenants of this outdated model.

The 21st century learning model is grounded in preparing students for a whole new world as we move into the technological era.  This model is based around active student learning, student-led learning, and experiential learning.  This model focuses on the development of critical and creative thinking skills, collaboration and communication (the 4 “C”s).  This model focuses on the development of student learning skills to enable a student to learn how to learn in a modern technological world.

Another way to look at this is that the old education model was based around teachers teaching and the 21st century model is based around students learning.

Authentic Student Learning Experience (ASLE)

This is a program developed out of Ottawa and one that engages students who are struggling and pulls out and promotes learning that students are doing on their own in their daily lives.  An example here would be a student who is not attending and not engaged but is doing a lot of drawing on their own.  The teacher inquires and takes interest in this art, encourages the student to put together an art portfolio, links it in with their favorite music, adds some comments about what the art means to them and now we have grades in 3 subjects and student success.  We build on this success.

100% Student-Led Experiential Learning

With this model, students identify what they would like to learn about, how they would like to do that, when they think they would be done and how they would like to be assessed and present their great work.

This can take a variety of directions but the student always has a choice and the teacher acts as a facilitator

The student will lead the learning and then the teacher will link this work back to the curriculum…an example here might be that a student wants to make a cookbook out of personal interest.   From this work the teacher gets high-quality math, visual arts, oral communication, writing and media literacy work for assessment.

Teacher-Directed Experiential Learning

This is where the educator suggests the experiential project direction and guides students to get started but then allows for student-led learning to occur from there.

Teacher-directed experiential learning allows the educator to often predetermine what curriculum expectations are met and allows for a myriad of cross-curricular connections and assessments.

There are many examples of this that are already occurring to a certain degree in schools.  When students perform in the arts, when they conduct science experiments, when they participate in sports they are doing teacher-directed experiential learning.

But much more of this is possible…students are asked to plan a dream vacation, buy a car, buy and furnish a home, write a school newspaper, plan a school-wide yard cleanup, organise a bake sale, and make this part of the academics and reporting for the term …there is no end to these types of projects once an educator changes how they think about what they are planning, teaching assessing and reporting on.

All content for k-12 schools in any province or state is available online right now.  In fact, all content is available in multiple languages, in video, audio, print, and game formats 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

There is no individual teacher that could ever produce content-based lessons as well as they are already presented online.

This is a fundamental game changer for education and one that we are not presently working with.

Teachers do not need to teach content in the same way anymore.  

Teachers need to motivate and facilitate learning in their students.  Teachers need to build the skills and processes needed for students to access the content when they want, where they want and in ways that work for that student’s individual learning style.

Teachers need to instruct along the lines of critical and creative thinking skills and problem-solving skills.

The best way to get started with all these new teaching paradigms and the best way to build on this new way of doing education in the 21st century is to initiate experiential, student-led learning activities in the classroom.

This does not mean a radical transition but rather can be done in a gradual, incremental way that builds into existing teacher programs and then evolves from there.

The other piece that is extremely important to recognize with new technologies is that the content is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  In terms of experiential learning and student-led learning, this is very important.  

Students today can access their learning anytime they want and wherever they want.  This is huge as many students do their very best learning outside of school hours and in fact outside of schools altogether.

Students who face social anxieties, discrimination, and other prejudice at school are often not even close to being at their best at school.  This can change with the student-led model.