Connecting learners with curricular content so they take ownership of it and make it their own necessitates that design and delivery of learning experiences meets two requirements.
- It must be meaningful to learners.
- It must make sense to learners.
In a paradigm of top-down education reform that effectively limits teacher autonomy, this is easier said than done. How much flexibility (or encouragement) do teachers have to adapt curricula and enlist students as co-creators of educational experiences? Not much. Nor are they trained in that capacity. The result is scripted content designed for average student across the nation, making it effective for no-one because no learner is average across the board. (For more on this topic, check out Todd Rose's brilliant TEDxSonoma talk on the "Myth of Average.")
A small group of passionate and dedicated educators in New York City, lead by Columbia Teachers College