The concept of deeper learning has been steadily gaining momentum worldwide and was recently the focus of discussion at the Deeper Learning UK Conference 2023, which I was fortunate enough to attend. Nobody, of course, would advocate for an education system predicated on shallow learning. So why is deeper learning becoming such a phenomenon? Its strength lies in its ability to alert us to the shortcomings of existing approaches to learning, most of which merely scratch the surface of what young people need to thrive in a complex world.
At its core, deeper learning is about developing curiosity, creativity, resilience and the ability to collaborate, alongside knowledge and understanding. It transcends the confines of the classroom. It invites students to see the relevance of education to their lives, interests, and aspirations, fostering a sense of purpose and meaning. Just as a healthy five-a-day diet nourishes the body, deeper learning helps nourish students’ minds. And while, like any signature dish, its ingredients can be varied, these five core ingredients remain key.
Competences like creative and critical thinking, oracy and collaboration are core to deeper learning. They breathe life into the knowledge within the subjects of a school timetable. However, the key thing about competencies is that they don’t respect subject boundaries. Essentially, they nourish not just one part of a learner’s mind but the interconnected aspects that lead them to become well-rounded individuals.
And accepting this reality compels us to dive into deeper learning, where competencies represent the practical application of knowledge inside and outside the classroom and in learners’ daily lives.
While studying history, for example, we may also engage in critical thinking. In science, we might explore the reasons for the decline in bird numbers, leading us to learn more about biodiversity loss. This ‘split screen thinking’, incorporating knowledge and competences, involves considering both the context of knowledge and the manner of its application. It also emphasises the breadth of skills and their relevance in various aspects of life. Notably, countries that take deeper learning seriously have adopted competency-based national curricula.
If we acknowledge deeper learning, it becomes evident that our current – largely didactic – teaching methods require a shift. They lack nutrition. Within deeper learning, we encounter a range of signature pedagogies that substantially enhance the taste and flavour of the learning experience. These pedagogies typically revolve around posing open-ended questions, crafted by educators, employers, or even the students themselves, where there is often not one right answer.
Teaching and learning that actively promotes thought-provoking questions is commonly known as problem-based learning.
While poorly executed problem-based learning can yield unsatisfactory results, implemented well, it mirrors the training of skilled professionals like doctors and engineers. If such an approach is worthy of professionals in specialised fields, it undoubtedly holds value for students at school or college. To attain the desired outcomes of deeper learning, this pedagogical paradigm shift is not just beneficial – it is essential to a well-rounded educational diet.
A natural side effect of adopting deeper learning is that your thinking, making and doing will go through various stages. Engineers refer to this as prototyping, scientists as experimentation. Drama teachers might term it improvisation, while English teachers call it drafting. In life, your initial idea is likely not to be your only one, nor your best.
This aspect of deeper learning revolves around the concept of producing beautiful work. It involves a deep desire to create something of genuine quality and beauty that will fill learners with pride. The real magic of this core ingredient is its power to inspire motivation in historically disaffected students, nurturing a natural authenticity within their work and helping them absorb every last mineral of their learning.
In most manifestations of deeper learning – whether we look to High Tech High in the United States, Big Picture Learning in Australia, or XP School in Doncaster – there is an emphasis on young people working in small groups towards a shared goal. Whether it manifests as expeditionary learning, or as crew, it is about groups going on a journey together.
Through group work, students learn about interdependency, collaboration, and will gain invaluable emotional intelligence skills. This involves following something from inception to output, the latter of which could be a display, podcast, film, exhibition or other kind of artefact.
What’s key is that, within deeper learning, the vital artefacts are not exercise books but actual books, not artificial exercises but authentic presentations to real audiences. Young people demonstrate mastery, capability and passionate engagement by creating something useful and often beautiful. This ties to the notion that obtaining mastery requires deliberate practice in different contexts, providing depth, breadth and strength – giving our deeper learning dish a high nutritional rating!
The garnish on our five-a-day dish is assessment. The way deeper learning assesses learner knowledge, skills and competencies must be fundamentally different from the conventional approach of relying on timed essays written in dusty exam halls.
To understand what individual learners are good at, we must look at their output and how they’ve evolved throughout the learning process. This approach is much closer to the authentic feedback we experience in the real world.
While written exams may have a role in testing certain things, it can all too easily result in shallow learning that teaches to the requirements of the test. Deeper learning’s approach to assessment, therefore, must be multimodal, using a blend of methods – different spices, if you will – that are suited to different content and contexts. Ultimately, regardless of assessment method, deeper learning will result in a broader picture of who students have become, what they know and what they can do, captured in a digital learner profile. This incorporates conventional qualifications, but also captures all the other things they have achieved throughout their educational journey.
Professor Bill Lucas is Director of the Centre for Real-World Learning at the University of Winchester, Co-Founder of Rethinking Assessment and Chair of the Global Institute of Creative Thinking’s Advisory Board. He tweets as @LucasLearn
This post was originally published by the Edge Foundation.
