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So today, I want to talk about helping students become master learners again
and how integrated learning can support that goal.
After teaching adults of all ages for many years I had a good fortune to
become a mother
and watch my child aloysius learn about the world
What Allie teaches me every day is the power of repurposing.
For Allie every moment offers the occasion to take what he knows and apply
it in a new context.
His repurposing and imagining
demonstrates that he is the master learner in our home.
and i'm sure not the first career educator
to be upstaged by a child's passion and and talent
for self-directed
purposeful fully integrated learning tinkering and remixing.
Like most parents, my husband and I
give Allie toys whose purpose is clearly marked on the box
this car is for racing on this track
this Playdo is for boys construction projects.
Our expectations for how Allie will play with the toys are shaped
by the company's profit motive and their own adherence
conventional norms.
But as a child, Allie is a master learner and he ignores manufacturer's
instructions.
Our home is filled with houses is made from boxes,
secret caves made from gift bags
rabbit holes made from hampers
the classic drums made from pots and hands
and suitcases inhabited
like boats adrift on a sea of clothes
always have aly and my mind
then i think about my teaching
fulfilling are missing
involves constantly looking for ways
to make this up onto the master learners
that we were as children
with every discipline
an occasion for a visionary thinking
and problem solving
integrated learning offers one pedagogical structure
for re and gauging students
styled like your ya city
and wonder in learning
people earning and unforgettable experiences occur when students bring
their whole cells to a project
as lanes shakespeare students do
students develop twenty-first century skills of problem solving
and collaborating
when they think about a subject from multiple perspectives
and apply what they learn in a fresh context
as lanes earth and environmental scientist science students do here at
the coast
integrative learning also encourages students to take tacit
or incomplete comprehension
and work with that until it becomes understanding
groping around a complex issues such as global resources to find out what you
already know
is the first step
to learning what you need to know
just alley starts taking pictures before he knows how a digital camera works
so must we encourage our students to have the courage to push the thresholds
of their knowledge and to create things on their way to understanding them
when we have heard students to assume a posture of wonder and curiosity
and to embrace experimentation
we are helping them to become the master learners that they were has children
and this is an old idea that is still worth sharing