Authentic
Learning in Context
I
call systems thinking the fifth discipline
because it is the conceptual cornerstone that
underlies all of the five learning disciplines
…All are concerned with a shift of mind
from seeing parts to seeing wholes, from seeing
people as helpless reactors to seeing them
as effective participants in shaping their
reality, from reacting to the present to creating
the future.
--
Peter Senge
The Fifth Discipline
As
the matrix below illustrates, teaching and learning
can happen in a variety of ways and locations—each
appropriate to the goals of the experience.
Discrete
experiences—direct instruction and memorization,
for example – are appropriate for the development
and honing of specific skills. These strategies
are employed both in classrooms and in workplaces.
Examples include the mastery of multiplication
tables, or of specific work processes such as
changing the oil in a car.
For
the development of “higher order”
skills—necessary to solve more complex
problems for which there are no pre-determined
solutions—more authentic, integrated teaching
and learning strategies are appropriate. Integrated
strategies allow students to see the connections
among disciplines, and between the disciplines
and the technical areas of interest. They also
allow students to connect the learning to their
own interests and goals.
Many
teachers have begun to integrate academic curricula,
for example, English and Social Studies. Some
have begun to integrate academic with career/technical
content. This occurs most readily when teachers
work together, when academic teachers have had
previous industry experience, or when industry
partners can provide input and guidance. Click
here to go directly
to the section on school-based
curriculum integration.
In
some schools, learning-rich workplace experiences
are available, allowing students to explore
areas of possible career interest, to learn
technical and workplace skills and to build
relationships that may help them with future
employment. Click here
to go directly to the section on community-based
learning.
Finally,
a few schools “do it all”, that
is, integrated curriculum and projects, linked
to learning rich community- and work-based experiences,
and connected to the students’ interests
and future goals through career exploration,
guidance, reflection and dialogue. We call this
the Fifth Option.
The
Fifth Option – “systems thinking”,
with students at the heart. We offer
the Fifth Option for student-centered teaching
and learning—integration across domains
and across sectors, with the student’s
needs and interests at the center of the system,
much as Peter Senge, in his work with organizations,
offered “the fifth discipline” as
“system thinking.” When this happens,
students not only apply learning, they create
knowledge and make meaning.
James
Moffet, in his book The Universal
Schoolhouse, proposes community
learning systems. In his proposal, the educational
system is the entire community—a network
of adults and resources—guiding its children
and awakening them to possibilities for self-expression
and service that can transform the world. In
this changing world, no single adult can impart
to a child everything he or she needs to know,
not only because there is too much to impart,
but because “no one can predict exactly
what [young people] will need to know. Students
have to learn how to survey, sift and select
knowledge. More, they also have to learn the
very nature of knowledge—how it is made
and used and what the various forms may be worth.
They need to learn how to learn, how to investigate
independently, how to think for themselves.”
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