What people are saying about Imaginative EducationIt’s great stuff! I was exposed to it through the article in Educational Leadership and I am now reading the book. It makes so much sense! Thank you for your great work! Dave Bell (Texas) When I started to use IE several years ago now, that I tried it out in a few lessons here and there, was amazed at the success and then began to look for other areas and subjects in which I could use the Lesson Planning Frameworks and other aspects of the theory. Pamela Hagen. I am just back home after a great pro-day and still reeling from all that I learned from your workshop. Pamela Walker (Victoria, B.C.) I've been having a great deal of success with IE in the classroom. I taught grade 5 last year using IE-based concepts and had a GREAT year. I'm teaching kindergarten this year and using the concepts again - so far so fabulous! Mary Mulleady, (Teacher, Surrey.) |
Document ActionsIERG Wins Grant to Study LiD
last modified
2009-02-14 23:10
We have been awarded a grant to study pilot implementations of the “Learning in Depth” program. Dr. Allan MacKinnon will be one of the lead researchers, aided by Melanie Young, a Ph.D. student at Simon Fraser University. The project is to run for two years. Dr. Allan MacKinnon The objective of the project was described in the proposal as: “Our objective is to test some of the claims made about a newly proposed addition to the school curriculum. The innovative proposal, called “Learning in Depth,” (LiD) is as follows: In the first week of schooling, each student will be randomly assigned a topic to learn in depth. The topics might include "birds," "apples," "the circus," "railways," "the solar system," etc. Students will then study the assigned topics throughout their elementary and secondary education, along with the usual curriculum. They will meet regularly with their supervising teachers, who will give guidance, suggestions, and help as students build personal portfolios on their topics. The aim of Learning in Depth is for each student, by the end of her or his schooling, to know as much about that topic as almost anyone on Earth. In the process, argue the proponents of this program, students will learn something important about the nature of knowledge itself—specifically how one secures knowledge claims and how one distinguishes between knowledge and opinion--students will engage with learning in a new and intensive way, they will learn a range of cognitive skills--such as classifying and reclassifying knowledge, self-regulation, concentration, strategies of organizing increasingly complex material, etc.--students will become imaginatively stimulated by their topics, and they will build confidence as learners. Skeptics make a number of objections to the plausibility of the LiD program, and it is our objective to examine the following in this project: 1. Students will get bored. 2. The random assignment of topics will create disaffection among students. 3. Many of these topics are developmentally inappropriate for the ages at which they are to begin and so students will be discouraged. 4. The “depth” knowledge won’t transfer to the “breadth” knowledge. 5. It isn’t going anywhere without teacher buy-in, and it’s not going to get it. Each of these claims is such that we expect, by the conclusion of our proposed two-year research project, to generate knowledge useful to assessing the viability of this innovative program, even if only in the provisional way a two-year study can expect. We anticipate also to generate a significant amount of knowledge about how best to organize and run such a program, even if just the early but crucial stages.” Any teachers in the lower mainland of B.C. who would like to take part in this study should email: ierg-ed@sfu.ca making the “subject” line “LiD implementation.” |
