•  Making Learning Authentic

     

  • Taken from Best Practice: Today's Standards for Teaching & Learning in America's Schools, by Steve Zemelman, Harvey Daniels and Arthur Hyde, pp250-1

    Inside School

    • Let kids in on curriculum planning, choosing topics and readings, making schedules, keeping records.
    • Develop broad, interdisciplinary, thematic units based on student concerns.
    • Use tangible, tactile materials, artifacts, and live demonstrations where possible.
    • Favor learn-by-doing over learn-by-sitting-there-quietly-and-listening.
    • Follow news and current events, connecting them with curriculum.
    • Include activities that connect with students' multiple intelligences and cognitive styles.
    • Let students subdivide content, form groups, and conduct team projects.
    • Assign real, whole books, rather than synthetic basal texts created by publishers.
    • Use primary-source documents, not just textbooks, to teach history, science, and other subjects.
    • Invite speakers, experts, and interview subjects from the community.
    • Bring in parents to give presentations, conference with kids, create materials.
    • Schedule time in flexible blocks that match the curriculum.
    • Stress student goal setting and self-assessment.
    • Have regular one-on-one conferences across the curriculum.
    • Offer frequent performances, fairs, and exhibitions, inviting parent and community audiences.

    Beyond School

    • Give homework assignments that require interaction with family and community.
    • Plan regular field trips and attend arts performances that support the curriculum (offer supplemental / swap credit for students to do so on their own).
    • Visit, study, and investigate local government, services and businesses.
    • Get involved in community issues: recycling, safety, programs for kids / teens.
    • Launch family and community history projects.
    • Join a community beautification or art project.
    • Take students on, encourage participation in, or develop activities that depend on outdoor education, wilderness, ecology, and adventure experiences.
    • In conjunction with integrative units, have fact-finding tours where students take notes, make observations, or conduct interviews.
    • Conduct survey or opinion research, by mail, by email, or in person.
    • Develop volunteer relationships with local agencies, nursing homes, and hospitals.
    • Create regular student service or work internships.
    • Support student service clubs and groups that reach out to the community.
    • Invite students to suggest, plan, and evaluate outreach projects.
    • Share student work through parent and community newsletters, displays and events.
    • Display student artwork or research projects in off-campus settings.