Here is an excerpt from a blog I follow, a teacher who teaches me about teaching and learning:
http://gingerlewman.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/ask-us-to-need-to-learn/
Ask us to “need” to know
….What if school was set up to help us practice learning how to learn instead of spending time asking us to prove that we’ve retained something that’s been fed to us? Because in the real world, rarely is the information we need to know for our jobs, for our lives, fed to us. We have to go out and find that information….
So if we’re preparing our kids for the real world, why isn’t school set up with a series of challenges that made us need to learn information-gathering, idea processing, and content creation? And the kids learn what information (and skills) they need to know through those challenges? And best of all, why couldn’t the challenges be set up in ways students would want to complete them?
And why is this concept so difficult for us to try?
If you’re intrigued, let me know. I think I might have answers but I can’t complete this challenge alone. I need your help too.