A 21st Century Learning Model

The Inside-Out School: A 21st Century Learning Model

11/20/2012, Terry Heick, 

As a follow-up to our 9 Characteristics of 21st Century Learning we developed in 2009, we have developed an updated framework, The Inside-Out Learning Model.

The goal of the model is simple enough–not pure academic proficiency, but instead authentic self-knowledge, diverse local and global interdependence, adaptive critical thinking, and adaptive media literacy.

By design this model emphasizes the role of play, diverse digital and physical media, and a designed interdependence between communities and schools.

The attempted personalization of learning occurs through new actuators and new notions of local and global citizenship. An Inside-Out School returns the learners, learning, and “accountability” away from academia and back to communities. No longer do schools teach. Rather, they act as curators of resources and learning tools, and promote the shift of the “burden” of leanring back to a more balanced perspective of stakeholders and participants.

Here, families, business leaders, humanities-based organizations, neighbors, mentors, higher-education institutions, all converging to witness, revere, respond to, and support the learning of its own community members.

The micro-effect here is increased intellectual intimacy, while the macro-effect is healthier communities and citizenship that extends beyond mere participation, to ideas of thinking, scale, legacy, and growth.

The 9 Domains Of the Inside-Out Learning Model

1. Five Learning Actuators

Project-Based Learning 

Directed and Non-Directed Play 

Video Games and Learning Simulations 

Connected Mentoring 

Academic Practice 

2. Changing Habits

Fertilize innovation & design 

Acknowledge limits and scale 

Reflect on interdependence 

Honor uncertainty 

Curate legacy 

Support systems-level and divergent thinking 

Reward increment 

Require versatility in face of change 

3. Transparency

Between communities, learners, and schools 

Learning standards, outcomes, project rubrics, performance critera persistently visible, accessible, and communally constructed 

Gamification and publishing replace “grades” 

4. Self-Initiated Transfer

Applying old thinking in constantly changing and unfamiliar circumstances as constant matter of practice 

Constant practice of prioritized big ideas in increasing complexity within learner ZPD 

Project-based learning, blended learning, and Place-Based Education available to facilitate highly-constructivist approach 

5. Mentoring & Community

“Accountability” via the performance of project-based ideas in authentic local and global environments 

Local action –> global citizenship 

Active mentoring via physical and digital networking, apprenticeships, job shadows and study tours 

Communal Constructivism, meta-cognition, Cognitive Coaching, and Cognitive Apprenticeship among available tools 

6. Changing Roles

Learners as knowledge makers 

Teachers as expert of assessment and resources 

Classrooms as think-tanks 

Communities not just audience, but vested participants 

Families as designers, curators, and content resources 

7. Climate of Assessment

Constant minor assessments replace exams 

Data streams inform progress and suggest pathways 

Academic standards prioritized and anchoring 

Products, simulation performance, self-knolwedge delegate academia to new role of refinement of thought 

8. Thought & Abstraction

In this model, struggle and abstraction are expected outcomes of increasing complexity & real-world uncertainty 

This uncertainty is honored, and complexity and cognitive patience are constantly modeled and revered 

Abstraction honors not just art, philosophy, and other humanities, but the uncertain, incomplete, and subjective nature of knowledge 

9. Expanding Literacies

Analyzes, evaluates, and synthesizes credible information 

Critical survey of interdependence of media and thought 

Consumption of constantly evolving media forms 

Media design for authentic purposes 

Self-monitored sources of digital & non-digital data 

Artistic and useful content curation patterns 

The Inside-Out Learning Model Central Learning Theories & Artifacts: Situational Learning Theory (Lave), Discovery Learning (Bruner), Communal Constructivism (Holmes), Zone of Proximal Development & More Knowledgeable Other (Vygotsky), Learning Cycle (Kolb), Transfer (Thorndike, Perkins, Wiggins), Habits of Mind (Costa and Kallick), Paulo Freire, and the complete body of work by Wendell Berry