Deeper learning offers opportunities for imagination without cost to content knowledge

Abstract

Any effort to help educators enact effective instruction has to, at minimum, start from knowledge of their ideas about learning and their implications for pedagogy. In attempt to secure such knowledge, and part of a broader effort to inform instructional change towards a more explorative approach to learning, we ask: What do teachers consider a learning opportunity that affords deeper learning? How does this vary by teachers as a result of professional development? We hypothesize teachers at deeper learning/treatment schools may offer more opportunities for exploratory, imaginative thinking—the type of thinking too often diminishing by adolescence—alongside the knowledge-based learning more common in traditional schooling. Deeper learning/treatment schools are intended to engage students in activities that engender multiple deeper learning competencies to impact cognitive development and academic achievement. In a quasi-experiment with n = 409 teachers/assignments across both math and English subjects, and n = 22 matched-pair schools across the U.S., results support our hypotheses suggesting stronger learning opportunities provided by teachers at treatment schools enacting deeper learning. In both math and English language (ELA) subjects, opportunities to be imaginative can be developed without sacrificing knowledge-based, content learning. That is, both can be offered simultaneously. As part of a much larger longitudinal project, this preliminary work provides new rubrics – new tools – for teachers and researchers alike. We report reliability and validity of the rubrics developed and employed in this study. Implications for curriculum, pedagogy and public policy are discussed.