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What learning really matters for today's learners? In this article, David N. Perkins promises not to provide the answer, but rather to consider how we might think about the question. Learning that matters--which he calls lifeworthy learning--is characterized by four earmarks: opportunity, insight, action, and ethics. Educators should ask themselves, Is the learner likely to have many opportunities to use this learning throughout life? Does it offer important insights? Will it affect the learner's actions? And does it provide an ethical perspective? The good news is that the familiar academic disciplines offer a rich harvest of big understandings that are lifeworthy. The problem is that instruction often focuses instead on niche understandings--those that have little reach beyond the technical particulars of the discipline. Cell mitosis, a staple of high school biology classes, is a good example: Perkins asserts that learning the details of this process has less import than exploring more lifeworthy biology topics, such as the nature of communicable diseases or the ethical questions around genetic engineering. Students who have specific interests and passions should be able to develop expertise, but for most students, "the fundamentals, robustly understood and widely applied, are what deliver the greatest payoff."

School improvement initiatives can be like New Year's resolutions. They begin with a cherished vision of possibility and a spirit of commitment, and at first they make genuine progress. But over the long run, they fizzle out. In this article, David N. Perkins and James Reese explore four factors that help determine whether a change effort will collapse or survive: frameworks, leaders, community, and sustainability. According to the authors, many education leaders fail to recognize how complicated change can be. They follow a simple plan: make your goals clear, create learning opportunities, expand the effort step-by-step, and expect that reluctant stakeholders will eventually come around. But unless they plan for the inevitable obstructions that can arise in each of the four areas, promising change efforts may flounder.

The strategies that expose learners to the large volume of knowledge, enables them for creative thinking, self-management and deep reading. The different ways of creating knowledge with the help of creativity, communication, organization, problem solving and decision-making are discussed.

Although most constructivist classrooms feature active, social, and creative learning, different kinds of knowledge (inert, ritual, conceptually difficult, and foreign) invite varied constructivist responses, not one standard approach. Constructivism is pragmatic and should be viewed as a toolbox for problems of learning; teachers should use whatever works. (Contains 16 references.) (MLH)

A simple four-part framework gives teachers a language and strategy for enhancing their efforts to teach for greater understanding. In Braintree, Massachusetts, a mathematics teacher asks his students to design [...]

Project Zero's Visible Thinking approach demonstrates that cognition increases when students are able to speak, write or draw their ideas. The strategy uses thinking routines and documentation to expand learning in the content areas and develop thinking skills and dispositions.

The strategies that expose learners to the large volume of knowledge, enables them for creative thinking, self-management and deep reading. The different ways of creating knowledge with the help of creativity, communication, organization, problem solving and decision-making are discussed.

Hold on there. Surely I mean what, not where. What is intelligence--is it test scores, fast neurons, knowing your way around different kinds of thinking, the view I explained in [...]

Students who 'see the connections' are more likely to understand and remember what they learn. In this column, David Perkins explore 'learnable intelligence.' Is learnable intelligence an oxymoron? schizophrenic, self-contradicting [...]

A while ago I attended a conference held on a Caribbean island. On a visit to the only sizable village, someone asked a local resident about the island's population size. [...]

Students who 'see the connections' are more likely to understand and remember what they learn. In the next several issues, David Perkins will explore ways to forge the link between [...]

Awhile ago I found myself wondering: 'When was the last time I solved a quadratic equation?' Not your everyday reminiscence, but a reasonable query for me. Mathematics figured prominently in [...]