by Terry Heick
As an extension of our 9 Characteristics of 21st Century Learning we developed in 2009, we developed an updated framework, The reverse learning model.
The goal of the model is quite simple: it is not about pure academic competence, but rather about authentic self-knowledge, diverse local and global interdependence, adaptive critical thinking, and adaptive media education.
By design, this model emphasizes the role of play, the diversity of digital and physical media, and a designed interdependence between communities and schools.
The attempt to personalize learning occurs through new actuators and new notions of local and global citizenship. A Upside down school shifts learners, learning, and “responsibility” out of academia and into communities. Schools no longer teach. Rather, they act as curators of learning resources and tools and promote shifting the “burden” of learning toward a more balanced perspective of stakeholders and participants.
Here, families, business leaders, humanities-based organizations, neighbors, mentors, and institutions of higher education all converge to witness, revere, respond, and support the learning of members of one’s own community .
The micro effect here is increased intellectual intimacy, while the macro effect is healthier communities and citizenship that extend beyond mere participation, to ideas of thought, scale, legacy and of growth.
The 9 Domains of the Inside-Out Learning Model
1. Five learning actuators
- Project-based learning
- Directed and undirected play
- Video games and learning simulations
- Connected mentoring
- Academic practice
2. Change habits
- Well-being (for teachers and students) as an issue that deserves innovation and design
- Recognize limits and scale
- Reflecting on Interdependence
- Honor uncertainty
- Organize the inheritance
- Support systemic and divergent thinking
- Reward Increment
- Require versatility in the face of change
3. Transparency
- Between communities, learners and schools
- Learning standards, results, project rubrics, performance criteria constantly visible, accessible and constructed together
- Gamification and publishing replace “grades”
4. Self-initiated transfer
- Applying ancient thinking in unfamiliar and ever-changing circumstances as a matter of constant practice
- Consistent practice of prioritized big ideas within increasing complexity within the learner’s zone of proximal development
- Project-based learning, blended learning and place-based education available to facilitate a highly constructivist approach
5. Mentoring and community
- “Accountability” through the implementation of project-based ideas in authentic local and global environments
- Local action -> global citizenship
- Active mentoring via physical and digital networks, apprenticeships, job shadowing and study trips
- Community constructivism, meta-cognition, cognitive coaching and cognitive learning among the available tools
6. Change roles
- Learners as knowledge creators
- Teachers, experts in assessment and resources
- Classrooms as think tanks
- Communities are not just an audience, but engaged participants
- Families as content designers, curators and resources
7. Evaluation climate
- Constant minor assessments replace exams
- Data streams inform progress and suggest pathways
- Prioritized and Anchored Academic Standards
- Products, simulation performance and self-knowledge delegate academia to a new role of refining thinking
8. Thought and abstraction
- In this model, struggle and abstraction are the expected outcomes of increasing real-world complexity and uncertainty.
- This uncertainty is honored, and complexity and cognitive patience are constantly modeled and revered.
- Abstraction honors not only art, philosophy, and other human sciences, but also the uncertain, incomplete, and subjective nature of knowledge.
9. Develop literacy
- Analyzes, evaluates and synthesizes credible information
- Critical investigation into the interdependence of media and thought
- Consumption of ever-changing media forms
- Media Design for Authentic Purposes
- Self-monitored sources of digital and non-digital data
- Artistic and Useful Content Curation Templates
The Inside-Out Learning Model Central learning theories and artifacts: situational learning theory (Lave), discovery learning (Bruner), community constructivism (Holmes), zone of proximal development, and more informed other (Vygotsky) , learning cycle (Kolb), transfer (Thorndike, Perkins, Wiggins), Habits of Mind (Costa and Kallick), Paulo Freire and the entire work of Wendell Berry
Founder and Director of TeachThought
