Philosophy of Learning
SEEQS' educational philosophy is based on decades of research on how people learn. Our philosophy of learning is aligned with the Coalition of Essential Schools Common Principles and with the Big Picture Learning School Distinguishers.
Specifically, SEEQS’ foundational educational philosophy can be described with five core principles:
1. Real-world situations and real-world contexts enable real-world learning.
2. Learning occurs when learners take ownership of their learning.
3. Everyone is a teacher; everyone is a learner, all of the time.
4. A learning environment is composed of its community members, cultural values, and physical surroundings.
5. Improvement of the organization requires consciously collaborative participation by community members.
Real-world situations and real-world contexts enable real-world learning.
Students learn best when they can see clear connections between what they are learning and their actual life experiences. From a very young age, human beings are natural learners, “actively engaged in making sense of their worlds”. [1] Jean Piaget noticed that even infants seek “environmental stimulation that promotes their intellectual development”. [2] To foster human beings’ innate inclination to learn from the world around them, formal learning environments must enable natural learning environments.
Students learn about content when they are engaged in the practices and processes that experts in that discipline use. Experts notice features and patterns in information, organize content knowledge in particular ways, and can flexibly retrieve important aspects of knowledge—especially knowledge relevant to a particular task, i.e. “conditionalized” knowledge—with little effort. [3] SEEQS students will learn about subject matter in a meaningful way through exposure to experts and their practices while Examining Essential Questions of Sustainability.
Learning occurs when learners take ownership of their learning.
“When people have some range of choice about the shape and direction of their own learning activities—learning tends to be more meaningful and robust. When we’re in charge of our own learning, we…find opportunities to engage our minds, especially in environments rich with evocative objects and experiences.” [4] EQS courses are designed to enable students to help shape their own learning environments.
Carol Dweck [5] argues that educators need to help students gain the mastery-oriented, growth mindset. SEEQS students develop portfolios to document their learning over time, and self-assess their learning using rubrics developed in partnership with fellow classmates, teachers, and experts from the community.
Everyone is a teacher; everyone is a learner, all of the time.
Learning opportunities depend on “matching the right teacher with the right student when he is highly motivated in an intelligent programme, without the constraint of curriculum.” [6] In some circumstances, students learn best from teachers. In others, students learn best from fellow students. And in some cases, teachers learn from the students who show them a new way of approaching a task or ask a question that helps re-frame their thinking. EQS courses enable students and teachers to learn together and from each other, exploring unique and timely topics through the lenses of multiple disciplines and perspectives simultaneously.
Real learning by definition takes place across difference. Working across difference—whether age differences, learning difference, cultural or experiential difference—is akin to Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): “a concept of readiness to learn that emphasizes upper levels of competence.” [7] When you are motivated to learn by way of choice, challenge, control, and collaboration, [8] and you work with others who have different experience and knowledge—who see the world through a different lens—you can lead each other through the zone of not knowing into a zone of better understanding. Sudbury Valley School founder Daniel Greenburg argues that working across age differences among students is critical to moving through the Zone of Proximal Development, claiming “[It] provides a free flow of interaction among people at different points along the maturation process. It enables you, as you are growing toward adulthood, always to find somebody in both directions." [9] Multi-age EQS courses enable students of with varied experiences, skill sets, and interests, to interact with each other.
A learning environment is composed of its community members, cultural values, and physical surroundings.
Schools that use “the environment as an integrating context for learning” find benefits including “better performance on standardized measures of academic achievement in reading, writing, math, science, and social studies… increased engagement and enthusiasm for learning; and greater pride and ownership in accomplishments.” [10] In Hawaii, our views of the environment are influenced by the ahupua’a system that reflects not only Hawaiian history and values, but also the variety of occupations and ecosystems defined by it; these provide the natural environment for learning at SEEQS that is inherently place-based.
Improvement of the organization requires consciously collaborative participation by community members.
Organizations that are improving are “always working at the edge of their competence, and … always trying to find and deploy new forms of knowledge.” [11] Darling-Hammond et al. argue that “It is time for our education workforce to engage in learning the way other professionals do—continually, collaboratively, and on the job—to address common problems and crucial challenges where they work.” [12] Through Professional Learning Communities, SEEQS teachers will collaborate around their own learning and teaching, focusing on “high-leverage practices that occur frequently in teaching [and] are core to different approaches”. [13]
Richard Hackman identifies five conditions that, when present, increase the probability of team effectiveness. The group must be an interdependent team, have a clear and compelling direction, have a structure that enables teamwork, have resources and support to carry out their collective work, and have competent coaching. [14] The structure and schedule of SEEQS is designed to create these conditions to create a learning environment for all community members, all the time.
Specifically, SEEQS’ foundational educational philosophy can be described with five core principles:
1. Real-world situations and real-world contexts enable real-world learning.
2. Learning occurs when learners take ownership of their learning.
3. Everyone is a teacher; everyone is a learner, all of the time.
4. A learning environment is composed of its community members, cultural values, and physical surroundings.
5. Improvement of the organization requires consciously collaborative participation by community members.
Real-world situations and real-world contexts enable real-world learning.
Students learn best when they can see clear connections between what they are learning and their actual life experiences. From a very young age, human beings are natural learners, “actively engaged in making sense of their worlds”. [1] Jean Piaget noticed that even infants seek “environmental stimulation that promotes their intellectual development”. [2] To foster human beings’ innate inclination to learn from the world around them, formal learning environments must enable natural learning environments.
Students learn about content when they are engaged in the practices and processes that experts in that discipline use. Experts notice features and patterns in information, organize content knowledge in particular ways, and can flexibly retrieve important aspects of knowledge—especially knowledge relevant to a particular task, i.e. “conditionalized” knowledge—with little effort. [3] SEEQS students will learn about subject matter in a meaningful way through exposure to experts and their practices while Examining Essential Questions of Sustainability.
Learning occurs when learners take ownership of their learning.
“When people have some range of choice about the shape and direction of their own learning activities—learning tends to be more meaningful and robust. When we’re in charge of our own learning, we…find opportunities to engage our minds, especially in environments rich with evocative objects and experiences.” [4] EQS courses are designed to enable students to help shape their own learning environments.
Carol Dweck [5] argues that educators need to help students gain the mastery-oriented, growth mindset. SEEQS students develop portfolios to document their learning over time, and self-assess their learning using rubrics developed in partnership with fellow classmates, teachers, and experts from the community.
Everyone is a teacher; everyone is a learner, all of the time.
Learning opportunities depend on “matching the right teacher with the right student when he is highly motivated in an intelligent programme, without the constraint of curriculum.” [6] In some circumstances, students learn best from teachers. In others, students learn best from fellow students. And in some cases, teachers learn from the students who show them a new way of approaching a task or ask a question that helps re-frame their thinking. EQS courses enable students and teachers to learn together and from each other, exploring unique and timely topics through the lenses of multiple disciplines and perspectives simultaneously.
Real learning by definition takes place across difference. Working across difference—whether age differences, learning difference, cultural or experiential difference—is akin to Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): “a concept of readiness to learn that emphasizes upper levels of competence.” [7] When you are motivated to learn by way of choice, challenge, control, and collaboration, [8] and you work with others who have different experience and knowledge—who see the world through a different lens—you can lead each other through the zone of not knowing into a zone of better understanding. Sudbury Valley School founder Daniel Greenburg argues that working across age differences among students is critical to moving through the Zone of Proximal Development, claiming “[It] provides a free flow of interaction among people at different points along the maturation process. It enables you, as you are growing toward adulthood, always to find somebody in both directions." [9] Multi-age EQS courses enable students of with varied experiences, skill sets, and interests, to interact with each other.
A learning environment is composed of its community members, cultural values, and physical surroundings.
Schools that use “the environment as an integrating context for learning” find benefits including “better performance on standardized measures of academic achievement in reading, writing, math, science, and social studies… increased engagement and enthusiasm for learning; and greater pride and ownership in accomplishments.” [10] In Hawaii, our views of the environment are influenced by the ahupua’a system that reflects not only Hawaiian history and values, but also the variety of occupations and ecosystems defined by it; these provide the natural environment for learning at SEEQS that is inherently place-based.
Improvement of the organization requires consciously collaborative participation by community members.
Organizations that are improving are “always working at the edge of their competence, and … always trying to find and deploy new forms of knowledge.” [11] Darling-Hammond et al. argue that “It is time for our education workforce to engage in learning the way other professionals do—continually, collaboratively, and on the job—to address common problems and crucial challenges where they work.” [12] Through Professional Learning Communities, SEEQS teachers will collaborate around their own learning and teaching, focusing on “high-leverage practices that occur frequently in teaching [and] are core to different approaches”. [13]
Richard Hackman identifies five conditions that, when present, increase the probability of team effectiveness. The group must be an interdependent team, have a clear and compelling direction, have a structure that enables teamwork, have resources and support to carry out their collective work, and have competent coaching. [14] The structure and schedule of SEEQS is designed to create these conditions to create a learning environment for all community members, all the time.
References:
1. Bransford, John D., Brown, Ann L., & Cocking, Rodney R. eds. (2000b). How Children Learn. In How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School (pp. 79-113). Washington, D.C.: National Research Council.
2. quoted in Bransford, John D., Brown, Ann L., & Cocking, Rodney R. eds. (2000b). How Children Learn. In How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School (pp. 79-113). Washington, D.C.: National Research Council.
3. Bransford, John D., Brown, Ann L., & Cocking, Rodney R., eds. (2000a). How Experts Differ from Novices. In How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School (pp. 31-50). Washington, D.C.: National Research Council.
4. OWP/P Cannon Design, Inc., VS Furniture, and Bruce Mau Design. (2010), pp.6. The Third Teacher: 79 Ways You Can Use Design to Transform Teaching & Learning. Abrams.
5. Dweck, Carol (2000). Self-Theories: Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development. London: Psychology Press.
6. Illich, Ivan (1970). Why We Must Disestablish School (pp. 22). In Deschooling Society. London: Marion Boyars.
7. quoted in Bransford et al., 2000a Bransford, John D., Brown, Ann L., & Cocking, Rodney R., eds. (2000a). How Experts Differ from Novices. In How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School (pp. 31-50). Washington, D.C.: National Research Council.
8. Paris, S.G., & Turner, J.C. (1994). Situated Motivation (pp. 213-237). In Pintrich, P.R., Brown, D.R., & Weinstein, C. E. (Eds.), Student motivation, cognition, and learning. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
9. Daniel Greenburg, 1992, Greenberg, Daniel, ed. (1992). The Sudbury Valley School Experience, pp. 131-132 . 3d ed. Framingham, Mass.: Sudbury Valley School Press, 1992.
10. Lieberman, Gerald A., and Hoody, Linda L. (1998). Closing the Achievement Gap: Using the Environment as an Integrating Context for Learning. Poway, California: Science Wizards.
11. Elmore, Richard. n.d. “The Strategic Turn in School Improvement” Unpublished.
12. Darling-Hammond, L., Wei, R.C., Andree, A., Richardson, N., & Orphanos, S. (2009). Professional learning in the learning profession: A status report on teacher development in the United States and abroad. National Staff Development Council. Retrieved from: http://www.srnleads.org/resources/publications/pdf/nsdc_profdev_short_report.pdf
13. Ball, Deborah. (2008). The Work of Teaching and the Challenge of Teacher Education, Invited Address at Vanderbilt University, September, 2008. Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyPk8PocVL4
14. Hackman, Richard. (2004, June). What Makes for a Great Team? American Psychological Association Science Briefs. American Psychological Association. Retrieved from: http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2004/06/hackman.aspx
