Unlocking Deep Learning Potential By Nurturing Purpose, Choice, Community & Apprenticeship

In their book 'In Search of Deep Learning: The Quest to Remake the American High School' Jahl Mehta and Sarah Fine describe a quest to find Deep Learning at American High Schools. The authors describe Deep Learning as students being deeply engaged in a topic such that they both understand essential, core knowledge related to the content while also are able to be creative, find joy within, and can use the knowledge to solve relevant problems. 

Deep Knowledge is elusive in American schools. There are schools that prioritize “content mastery” (students know facts, acquire skills, and can produce a five-paragraph essay) and also schools that give students space to be creative and solve relevant problems. But despite their journey across the country, the authors were unable to pinpoint a single school that consistently delivered both. 

However, they did find that many schools have pieces of the puzzle in place. Perhaps surprisingly, they often found that deep learning could most often be found in the extracurricular activities students engaged in more so than their core classes. Drawing inspiration from their findings, this article explores how KaiPod, an educational model, encompasses key elements essential for deep learning, including purpose, choice, community, and apprenticeship.

Using the example of  Attainment High’s theater program the book illustrates how and why deep learning happens. 

“While theater is not unfamiliar to us or our readers, we aimed to see it with fresh eyes. We wanted to identify the key elements of it as a platform for learning and to see how those features compare to typical classroom experiences. We found that theater provides a strong platform for learning by bringing together a powerful blend of purpose, passion, and precision.” (p273)

They walk through five different contrasts between students' experience in a theater versus their experiences in core classes, four of which we want to explore here. For Fine and Mehta, these contrasts are the reasons why students feel more motivated, engaged, and therefore experience deep learning while at theater as opposed to their core classes. 

1.  Purpose. 

The presence of the show and the expectations of the audience are always there just out of sight, organizing the use of space, time, and attention. It puts the students and adults on the same side—when working collectively toward a goal, time is the enemy (because it passes too quickly), and any action that might potentially promote the goal is entertained. And it eliminates the need for grades, and other forms of management, because the production is what organizes the action (p276). 

At KaiPod, some of our older students work on self-directed learning projects: a passion project students want to spend time at KaiPod working on. One of the expectations for self-directed learning projects is that they must be presented to the entire pod at a specific point in time. Inevitably, when students have a self-directed learning project it is the thing they want to spend their time on. Even when the tasks are more complicated or laborious than what their online school, for example, is asking them to complete. This is in part because it’s something they’ve had a choice (next section) and autonomy over. However, like the play for theater students, the presentation of their project to the larger community orientates students and provides them with a more authentic motivation to work towards the completion of their project even when things get hard. 

2. Choice. 

A big part of what characterizes theater, other extracurriculars, and electives is that students choose to attend. When we interviewed students after the show, again and again they returned to the fact that it differed from core classes in school because they had chosen to be there. (p277)

Student autonomy is one thing when it comes to extracurricular activities, but how does this transfer over to core academic classes? 

Even if students are required to take a class, student choice can still play a major role in creating an environment for Deep Learning. Choice is a spectrum and while for most families subject areas like reading, writing, and math aren't optional for students, there are a number of things that can give them more autonomy. 

• At KaiPod we rely on families to make decisions about what content children should work on. Children will always take course content more seriously when they and their parents have been involved in the selection process. Throughout childhood, it is the role of parents to support their children in making positive choices. Especially elementary school children are used to looking towards their parents for guidance about what’s important and what they should focus on. 

• Unlike traditional classrooms we have the ability to offer students (and families) a choice in the curriculum they use. For example, some of the math curricula used at KaiPod require students to sign into a live online class once a week while some are entirely self-paced. Some of the curricula are problem based while some are more direct; some use technology while some use a paper-based workbook. Giving students and families a way to select for these factors empowers students and supports Deeper Learning. 

• Everyday at KaiPod students are given 30 minutes to read a pleasure reading book of their choice. It doesn’t matter to us much what the book is so long as parents approve of the book’s content, the book is around the student’s reading level, and the student enjoys reading it. We have seen students who did not want to read become completely absorbed in their book during independent reading time. 

3. Community

We were surprised by the number of students who simply appreciated that they didn’t have to go home and be by themselves after school and liked knowing that there was a place they could go and hang. Much like former professional athletes who say that the thing they miss most in retirement is the camaraderie of the locker room, students reported that the best part of theater was the chance to be with their friends. (p 278-279)

KaiPod’s community is an essential piece of our core program. A positive social environment is the reason many of our homeschooling and online school students attend. One of our top priorities is to ensure that every single student feels like they belong and have a friend they look forward to seeing while at KaiPod. We provide students with a significant amount of unstructured time where they are encouraged to socialize together by playing games, creating art, or engaging in physical activity.

4.  Apprenticeship 

Students learned by doing, but they did so under the watchful eye of people who had more experience. This was particularly true in the production departments—lights, costumes, set, stage management—where students described a process of rising through the ranks and gradually gaining more responsibility.

At KaiPod, we believe mixed-aged pods lead to a better social environment and support students in making more positive choices. Oftentimes younger students want to impress older students more so than they want to impress adults. And older students benefit tremendously from the sense of responsibility that comes with knowing that there are other kids who are looking up to them as role models. It’s conventional for students to spend the vast majority of their day with other students their same age, but that can lead to social power struggles and bullying. When younger students are around, older students’ status is gained by teaching and supporting younger students. 

Mehta and Fine set a high bar for what it means to foster “Deep Learning”. KaiPod Learning and other microschools around the country have significant work to do in order to meet their definition. But given what they have to say about Attainment High’s theater program, our foundational structure is better set up for success than most schools throughout the country.   

Ryan Holmes is the Chief Academic Officer at KaiPod Learning. In previous roles he has worked as a math teacher, Director of Curriculum and Instruction, and Principal.