A305: Week 1:
Deeper Learning:
What it is, why we don’t have more of it, and
what a better system would look like
Goals for Today

Understand/analyze:


Begin to think about what good learning looks like
Synthesize/create:


Begin to develop own theory of what inhibits deeper learning
Begin to design a system to support deeper learning
Plan

Part I. What is Deeper Learning (1:10 – 2:00)

Part II: Integrating The Pieces (2:10 – 3:30)


Why Is It So Hard to Develop Deep Learning?

What Would a Better System Look Like?
Part III: Discussion and Synthesis (3:30 – 4:00)
Starting Points
What
is DL?
Starting Points
Deeper learning
classrooms
What
is DL
Starting Points
Deeper learning schools
Deeper learning
classrooms
What
is DL?
A deeper learning system
Deeper learning schools
Deeper learning
classrooms
What
is DL?
A deeper learning system
Deeper learning schools
Deeper learning
classrooms
What
is DL?
Describe a Powerful Learning
Experience
Take a few minutes to jot
down a learning
experience that you’ve
had that you think was
particularly powerful or
“deep.”
Try to capture some of the
details that made it so
important or lasting.
Choose a Partner and Share
(5 minutes each)
Partner 1: Tell your partner about your
experience
Listener: Specifically, what made it so
powerful?
(Then switch)
Analysis:
What are the Themes of Deeper Learning
Reflecting on both the stories you’ve heard, your own
thinking coming into the course, and what you read in
the readings, what do you see as the common themes
of good or deep learning?
Break! (10 minutes)
Part II: Building a Deeper Learning System:
Mini-Design Challenge
A quick preview:
• Write each barrier on one post-it note (5 minutes)
• Put them up
• Clump and group (15 minutes)
• Connect with arrows to tell a story (10 minutes)
Part III: Debrief
A Few Closing Thoughts
• DL – more about qualities than methods
• NRC – Asking which pedagogical method is
best is like asking which tool is best
• Shared qualities
• Authenticity
• Rigor/challenge
• Timelessness
A Few Closing Thoughts
• Problem-based learning:
• Start with one problem
• Which has multiple layers or dimensions
• Let students work on it first
• Only then add expert knowledge
• Japan vs. U.S.
• More to come next week!
Mini-Lecture: Deeper Learning:
Against False Dichotomies
False dichotomy 1: Facts vs. skills or
content vs. learning for understanding
 False dichotomy:

NRC report clear:

Significant factual knowledge in a domain key for
understanding

At the same time, learning for understanding requires
ability to transfer (from facts to understanding)
 Real tradeoffs:

Breadth vs. depth
False dichotomy 2: “Drill and kill” vs.
unleashing students creativity
 Both Developing talent study and NRC report

Practice is important for developing mastery in a domain

Mastery of field or discipline generates opportunities for
more sophisticated forms of creativity
 (We will see this is true for teachers as well.)
 Real tradeoffs:

Mastering 1-2 domains vs. some facility in many
False dichotomy 3: Lower order vs.
higher order skills
 Bloom as web vs. Bloom as ladder
 Bloom as ladder


Basic skills now, higher order skills later
Bloom as web

Basic skills embedded in higher order tasks
Vygotsky:
Zone of Proximal Development
 Vygotsky’s ZPD – the activity that a student can reach
with appropriate scaffolding that they cannot reach without
it.
 Thus while the mastery of the concert pianists may be way
out of reach for young children, they can do tasks of
creativity, analysis, and synthesis, at their level
 Wagner reading – our system woefully
short on higher order tasks
s
Constructivism as a theory of learning is
true
 People learn in ways that build upon their previous
knowledge and existing categories (constructivist view of
learning)
 The mind is a muscle, and the person exercising it is the
one learning!
 Meta-cognition is important – ability to track what one is
learning, and regulate accordingly
But that does not imply that teaching
necessarily needs to be constructivist
 Teaching does not necessarily need to be constructivist:

Role for lecture and direct instruction

Ironically, lectures a good form for knowledgeable learners

Which method of teaching is best equivalent to which tool is
best

Cuban – Hugging the middle
Bringing the Parts Together:
The Instructional Triangle:
Task
Student
Teacher
The Instructional Triangle:
Three Big Shifts in a Move to Deeper Learning?
Task (level of cognitive challenge)
Student
Teacher
The Instructional Triangle:
Three Big Shifts in a Move to Deeper Learning?
Task (level of cognitive challenge)
Student
Teacher
(from dispenser of knowledge
to designer of learning)
The Instructional Triangle:
Three Big Shifts in a Move to Deeper Learning?
Task (level of cognitive challenge)
Student
(identity &
motivation)
Teacher
(from dispenser of knowledge
to facilitator of learning)
Trajectories of Deeper Learning
DL across a lifetime
DL across a curriculum
DL across a unit
DL in
one
class
Parallel Trajectories of Deeper Learning
 Classroom: Within a unit: Balancing development of
knowledge/skills with challenge/reach
 School: Within a curriculum across years – Spirals upon
which similar subjects/topics are touched upon with
increasing levels of depth and sophistication.
 Lifelong learning: Balancing periods of practice/mastery
with periods of exploration creativity
Deeper Learning as Expertise
Deeper Learning
 Knowledge is integrated,
connected
 Learner has a cognitive
schema that allows for the
incorporation of new
knowledge
 Knowledge can be
transferred and applied
 Learner can develop or
create new knowledge
Not Deeper Learning
 Knowledge is fragmented
and disconnected
 New knowledge is not
incorporated into a schema
 Knowledge cannot be
transferred or applied
 Learner can only receive
existing knowledge
Back to Your Group Theory of DL
 On the basis of the lecture or the readings, add any additional
principles that you think underlie deeper learning
 Re-group if necessary
 Re-label the groups if necessary
Small Group Discussion
This is your chance to decompress many of the things that may
have been rolling around in your head during the class. You can
take it any direction you like. Some possible prompts:
 What do you make of your collective principles underlying
deeper learning? Are there things missing? Key tensions?
 What would be some of the challenges if we tried to move from
principles to practice?
 What questions do you have that have been unresolved?
Our Takeaways and Reflections
 Tyler, Kim, and Jal – What are two big takeaways from this first
class? (2 minutes each)
Norm Check
1.
How did we do against our norms?
2.
In what ways did or didn’t this class model the principles of
“deeper learning”?