This compilation of articles describes three projects aimed at offering students authentic opportunities to develop global competencies. The first article describes Out of Eden Learn, an initiative from Project Zero at Harvard Graduate School of Education. The project engages students in learning journeys that follow Pulitzer Prize-winning…

The current political climate has created urgency around civic education. The authors argue that educators can best seize the moment by infusing authentic activities and experiences in content studies. They provide an example of one such hybrid instructional model from Democracy Prep Public Schools.

Expectations for high-level academic writing, especially in the Common Core era, have never been higher. Middle school and high school students are being asked to do close readings of complex texts and then respond in writing using academic discourse. This is a challenging task for many students, but perhaps none as great as for English language…

In too many schools, science and mathematics are taught separately with little or no attention to technology and engineering. Also, science and mathematics tend to function in isolation from other core subjects. In California, Linked Learning: Pathways to College and Career Success connects core academics to challenging professional and technical…

Being truly literate means being able to navigate the multiple sign systems of our world--to respond appropriately to an e-mail message or to convey meaning to others through images and text. Instead of relying on written narrative texts, teachers must develop inquiry-based methods, using experiential learning projects, oral storytelling, film and…

William Heard Kilpatrick, who pioneered project-based learning in the early 1900s, advocated basing schools on child-chosen projects engendering "purposeful activity." When children are allowed to choose what to explore, they become intrinsically motivated to work hard and strive for the highest quality. A fifth-grade teacher describes…

By focusing on students' abilities to apply knowledge to achieve long-term, real-world goals rather than on students' achievement of basic skills, teachers can develop a framework of experiential, multi-task activities supported by direct instruction, thus promoting the sharing of educational responsibility by both students and teachers. (PGD)

Education policymakers often go astray when they attempt to integrate multiple intelligences theory into schools, according to the originator of the theory, Howard Gardner, and his colleagues. The greatest potential of a multiple intelligences approach to education grows from the concept of a profile of intelligences. Each learner's intelligence…

Talbot Hill Elementary School in Renton, Washington, uses the MicroSociety model to make learning relevant and engaging for its diverse student population. Three afternoons each week, every student participates in a for-profit business, a governmental agency, or a nonprofit organization. Teachers prepare students to participate in the school's…

Using brain-based research, Douglass Elementary School in Boulder, Colorado, looked at the natural assets that both girls and boys bring to school and realized that its classrooms were generally a better fit for the verbal-emotive, sit-still, take-notes, listen-carefully, multitasking girl. Teachers tended to see the natural assets that boys bring…