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M y son Ben, a high school sophomore at the time,complained one evening, I dont know why I goto school.

I knew this as the classic sign that a brilliant mind wasabout to switch off, while attending an institutionwhose mission was to turn that mind on. I was allready for my soliloquy on the value of education whenhe continued,I sit in class wanting to learn a subject Isigned up to learn, and the teacher spends a third tohalf of the time trying to get kids to shut up and pay attention. Its a total waste.

We explored the post-secondary enrollment optionat his school. Ben went for it. He earned his highschool diploma during his junior and senior yearswhile attending a local college, and completed almosttwo full years of his college transcript in the MinnesotaState Colleges and Universities system at the same time.

He had found a better way for himself. His paththrough high school characterized the best of what canhappen for the learner: choice, exibility, advocacy,focus, posi tive in terdependence, access to r ichresources, respect of learning style and educationalopportunity.

Finding a Better WayBen was not the rst to look at education and lament,There has GOT to be a better way! Throughout oursociety people are demanding new options to boosttraditional educational approaches. Over the past twodecades, my professional life has focused on helpings tu de nt s , e d uc ato rs , c or p or at e t ra in er s, a ndadministrators nd better ways to facilitate learning.Working internationally, I have witnessed that when abetter way emerges, the magni cence of the humanbeing as learner can achieve marvelous potentials.

Innovations in education have come from diversesources. These include advancements in cognitiveneuroscience; learner-centered classroom instructionthat promotes active, collaborative, accelerative, brain-compat ible learning; cheaper, readi ly availabletechnology; authentic assessment that provide richfeedback to the learner; and shifting roles for all thestakeholders in the educational process.

My passion for codifying and disseminating new approaches to teaching and learning intends torecapture the natural brilliance of the human brain

and body, so that people can acquire information,knowledge, and skills better, faster, cheaper. Here Iwill examine three innovative trends in education thatcan be successfully implemented in any setting.

Make it RelevantWhat were your most meaningful learning experiencesin life? Did they take place in the classroom?

We come into the world as truly gifted learners,gathering massive input and organizing it into usefulpatterns. Track the speed and pro ciency of the pre-schooler acquiring information and skills. Learningoccurs naturally as a part of engaging in life activities.Learning is relevant, learner directed, oriented toproblem solving, offers unlimited repetition,and allowsfor trial and feedback (Gordon, 1995). Then school startsand much of the naturalistic learning opportunitiesgive way to prescriptive and contrived lessons. Many learners begin to switch off (Grinder, 1991).

As educators, our job seems clear deliver theinformation students need to succeed. If the learnerdoes not succeed, do we claim we are teaching disabledor do we contemplate the students learning disability?

Typically, our job description focuses on theteaching, not on the learning (Barr and Tagg, 1995). Sowe try again; establish the necessary competencies,design appropriate instruction, deliver the content,facilitate building knowledge and skills, measure theattainment of competencies based on pre-determinedperformance criteria. But again, in our efforts to makesure the students learn, we have left the learner out of the process when designing relevant instruction.

When we begin to focus on making learning

relevant, a new choice emerges for effective design anddelivery of instruction. Think multiples: multipleintelligences, multiple sensory systems, and multiplelearning styles. New trends in affective education(Society for Effective Affective Learning) and learner-

centered instruction (The Learning Paradigm) areattracting growing numbers of interested educatorsand producing remarkable results with students.

A good theory in practiceexample can be found atthe School for Environmental Studies in Apple Valley,Minnesota. Following the New Designs model putforth by the National Center for Research in VocationalEducation (NCRVE) (Copa, 1998), the school was builtfrom the blueprints of an ideal school environment.

On the Horizon July/August2000

Turn On the NaturalGifts of LearnersPaul R. Scheele

Learning Strategies CorporationPaul Scheele@LearningStrategies.com

I n o u r e f fo r t s to m a k e s u r e t h es t u d e n t s le a r n , w e h a v e le f t t h ele a r n e r o u t o f th e p r o c e s s w h e nd e s ig n i n g r e le v a n t in s t ru c t i o n

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Students there work harder than they might have everimagined yet they find the challenges extremely rewarding and worth the effort. Educators haverecognized that when the learner perceives therelevance of what they learn, they stay attentive,interested and motivated.

Focus on the Highest Purpose: Learning to LearnWhat do you remember from history classes in school?I asked a history professor Do you care if I learnnames, dates, and places?

No! he insisted. Names, dates and places are notimportant. The importance of history is to be able tothink with an historical perspective.

Interesting competency. Makes me wonder why thatwas never made explicit to me in school? When wemake such goals explicit, they are easier to accomplish.This is the domain of metacognition and it facilitateslearning how to learn.

As the complexity of society continues to increase, asinformation continues to explode, no teacher will everbe able to keep up with the most current content in aeld. But if a student learns how to learn in a subjectarea, they can use their skills outside the classroom to

succeed wherever they go.Whenever learning occurs, learners need to know

how they learned it. When they have access to modelsand insight that provides for metacognitiveunderstanding, they become more skilled at continuingsuch learning long after any formal instructionis over.The learner has an opportunity to become a lifelonglearner in that subject area. Educators who understandthe strategies needed for effective learning must ndways to engage students at that level.

For example, many people who spell poorly use adysfunctional strategy a phonetic spelling strategy.Try spelling phonetics phonetically. It cannot be done.How about the word Albuquerque? No way. Theproper strategy for spelling is v isual. When a personlearns how to spell a word, have them visualize theletters in the minds eye and spell the word backwards.The full strategy is to rst check the picture, and thencheck the feelings (Van Nagel et al , 1985).

Similarly, there are different test taking strategies forhandling determinant problems (math) andindeterminate problems (essay). Ask someone wholoves math if they like doing essays. They will usually

say No! Ask someone who loves essays if they likedoing math problems. Dig deeper and you will ndthat neither has the others effective approach to takingthe tests. And as it goes, once a student has failed tolearn, they often learn to fail. Instead of discoveringnew learning strategies, they default to a belief, Im just no good at and you can ll in the blank. I havefound that most people who switch off to a subject do

so for lack of effective metacognitive strategies(Scheele, 1997).

You have heard the wisdom, When you teach a manhow to sh, you feed him for a lifetime. Never has thisbeen truer than in the classroom. Teach someone how to learn it and they can become lifelong learners.

Make it ActiveRoger Johnson, Director of the Center for CollaborativeLearning at the University of Minnesota, said that hehas over 800 studies referenced that show collaborativelearning is a better way to learn compared to traditionallecture-based teaching. Yet, he claims, less than 5% of teachers use collaborative learning.

That statistic might not surprise you. Many of ushave come to believe when the instructor does notknow what to say, they put us into a small groupdiscussion. However, the proper use of collaborative,active learning methods can serve as potent tools toengage a learners full mental resources.

Passivity puts the brain in the wrong gear for effectiveperformance (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). The classroomswhere learners become busy, active and communicativetend to be far more rewarding and effective (Johnson,1998; Cross, 2000). The use of simulations, decision

cases, games, group problem-solving, collaborativeprojects and presentations can be quickly designed andeasily integrated into a lecture-based program. But likeany technique you use, plan to learn from your rst few trials with it. Use feedback from course participants toenhance instructional methodologies. Be an activelearner yourself and what you model for your studentswill come back to you abundantly.

ConclusionIn the coming week, enter your own laboratory of lifeto gather empirical evidence. Notice how issues of relevance, metacognition and collaboration affect the

educational settings in which you find yourself.Discover how much an experience suffers from the lack

On t he Horizon July/August20006

E d u c a t o r s w h o u n d e r s t a n d t h es t ra t e g ie s n e e d e d f o r e f fe c t i v ele a r n in g m u s t n d w a y s t o e n g a g es t u d e n t s a t t h a t l e v e l

O u r g o a l a s e d u c a t o r s a n d p o lic y m a k e r s s h o u ld b e to t u r no n o u r n a t u r a l g i ft s fo r l e a r n i n g

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