How to Fuel Students' Learning Through Their Interests

Amy Truter

ET

Quillen, I. (2013). How to fuel students' learning through their interests. MindShift. Retrieved from http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/02/how-to-fuel-students-learning-through-their-interests/.

David Preston, a high school teacher in Los Angeles, uses a variation on inquiry learning that  he calls "open source learning," which is all about allowing students to choose their own learning path based on their interests and personal goals. He requires students to maintain a blog and encourages them to be creative in what and how they post. Additionally, he makes use of video conferencing to connect his students to authors, as well as allowing his students to form groups around a particular interest in order to practice writing for AP exams.

I really like this idea of connecting students to the curriculum through their interests. I'm sure many students would perform better in school and care more about their education if it were made important or meaningful to them. After all the readings I've done this semester, I really feel like students need to take ownership of their own learning in order to make any progress and giving them free reign in what and how they produce for classroom assignments is a really great way to do this.