In 2019, two researchers, one from Harvard School of Education, Jay Mehta, and the other from the School of Education at UC San Diego, Sarah Fine, visited 30 high schools representing a wide demographic and geographic mix to observe deep learning taking place in four distinct high school curricula: project-based, ‘no-excuses’, International Baccalaureate, and ‘conventional’.
What they discovered was ‘deep learning’ is rare in US high schools because traditional education remains intact. Tradition demands covering lesson plans efficiently, focusing on breadth not depth, perceiving knowledge as ‘certain,’ using grades to motivate, and viewing failure as detrimental: all within an ethos of compliance.
Deep Learning is not a magic formula intended as a backdoor into enlightenment. Rather, it is a combination of four qualities that meld into ‘ever deepening cycles of learning over time.’ The first is ‘mastery’ over a subject creating considerable skill and knowledge; the next is ‘identity’, a firm identification between the subject and self; next ‘creativity’ allowing the student to develop her own ideas to make learning deep; lastly, ‘community,’ the environment in which learning takes place.
The one concern I have with this description of deep learning is the use of the term ‘mastery’. One might be familiar with Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, and his 10,000-Hour Rule. Mastery might take 20 hours a week for 10 years, but there is no direct trajectory to mastering a skill. It’s iterative, a give and take process of development subjected to the trials of life, reconfigured and then reasserted. From this process the deeper cycles of learning emerge reaching higher levels of mastery.
“Project-based learning” schools feature experiential learning. Some projects warrant admiration and exhibit high levels of execution and scholarship, while others fail. A lot depends on the guidance and commitment of the teachers, and the students, and it’s difficult for this to gel consistently across large numbers of students.
‘No Excuses’ schools emphasize clearly structured classes with curriculum goals defined, class activities carefully scaffolded to ensure the maximum mental productivity elicited from the students. There is always ‘detailed feedback on the smallest errors’ to ensure all are perfecting their learning. Discussions are carefully metered to stay on point, reducing inquiries into concepts that might digress from the day’s plans. While this ‘hyper-controlled’ learning might succeed in getting a student into a rigorous undergraduate school, once in, the light of intellectual curiosity is often dim, and the ability to participate in open ended learning is limited.
The International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma program provides students to take up to 4 subjects at higher level (HL), and a Theory of Knowledge component, designed to analyze and compare sets of knowledge requisite to each discipline. The objective of the IB program is to provide students with the ability to perform meaningful research at the university level. An IB program might come up short if the teaching staff and student base are not well prepared for its rigors. Yet it does set clear expectations for students, allowing the school to determine the ‘how’, and does provide ‘pressure to create and maintain rigorous learning.’ The IB program, in the eyes of the authors, strike, “a middle ground between more radical and more traditional visions of deep learning.”
In the ‘comprehensive’ school they discovered the traditional approach in the key core courses engendered ‘passivity, boredom, and apathy.’ The peripheral classes were where a lot of deep learning emanated. The theater program incorporated many ‘deep learning elements.’ There, students were active producers, learned by doing, played to an audience, integrated students from different skill levels, and learned through apprenticeship. It brought together ‘a powerful combination of purpose, passion, and precision.’
Just like the search for knowledge itself, gaining ‘deep learning’ involves risk, experiment and adventure. The reward is students taking control of their own education through active engagement. As Socrates observed long ago: “Education is the kindling of a flame, not a filling of a vessel.”