Passion-Based Learning: An Example

The article, How to Fuel Students’ Learning Through Their Interests, by Ian Quillen features inquiry, open-source, and passion-based learning.  High School teacher David Preston uses students’ personal blogs to help them think critically through responses that include text, video, and audio. Preston’s students take part in virtual discussions with peers and in video-conferencing with experts such as Bryan Alexander of the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education and author Cory Doctorow.  Students select their own cross-curricular questions to answer in a research-type “paper”, map ideas for achieving personal goals, and work collaboratively with others who share their personal interests.  They exchange ideas and help each other to move forward in their Advanced Placement coursework and in other areas of learning.

Advocates of inquiry-based learning believe that by making education more meaningful for students there will be greater student interest in learning, more opportunities for cross curricular learning, additional ways to enhance creativity and critical thinking, and more opportunities for students to learn to use analytical tools.

Open Source Tech Tools for Teachers of Elementary Students

OER or Open Educational Resources are moving into elementary schools, because according to Karen Fasimpaur of Techedge, they make sense both because of budgetary issues and because of their flexibility. Some of the open sources she suggests are: Free Reading, a reading intervention program for students in k-6; Teachers’ Domain, a place to find video clips, interactives, lessons, and more from PBS; and Curriki with its more than 45,000 resources. Other OER sites Fasimpaur suggests would be valuable for teachers of elementary students include: /OER for K-12 LiveBinder, The Kids Open Dictionary, Learn NC, and OER Commons.