Deeper learning

In U.S. education, deeper learning is a set of student educational outcomes including acquisition of robust core academic content, higher-order thinking skills, and learning dispositions. Deeper learning is based on the premise that the nature of work, civic, and everyday life is changing and therefore increasingly requires that formal education provides young people with mastery of skills like analytic reasoning, complex problem solving, and teamwork. Deeper learning is associated with a growing movement in U.S. education that places special emphasis on the ability to apply knowledge to real-world circumstances and to solve novel problems. A number of U.S. schools and school districts serving a broad socio-economic spectrum apply deeper learning as an integral component of their instructional approach. While the term "deeper learning" is relatively new, the notion of enabling students to develop skills that empower them to apply learning and to adapt to and thrive in post-secondary education as well as career and life is not. A number of significant antecedents to deeper learning exist. For example, American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer John Dewey (1859–1952) made a strong case for the importance of education not only as a place to gain content knowledge, but also as a place to learn how to live. Like modern proponents of deeper learning, Dewey believed that students thrive in an environment where they are allowed to experience and interact with the curriculum, and all students should have the opportunity to take part in their own learning. Dewey's arguments undergirded the movements of progressive education and constructivist education, which called for teaching and learning beyond rote content knowledge. In the 1990s, skills-based education saw a resurgence with the advent of the "21st Century Skills" movements and the "Partnership for 21st Century skills".