Great thoughts! But I would suggest that you are missing something critical -- it's not merely students who are caught in the gap -- it's teachers as well! They feel they are caught in a system that is based on an assessment system that insists on focusing on deficits -- what a student can't do as opposed to what they can! We still demand sorting and selecting and that's incompatible with the great ideas you're advocating. It won't do much good to change things for students in ways that you point to if we don't help teachers imagine a different way that will better encourage. The good news is that there ARE ways to accommodate both what you envision for students AND do it with a reimagined approach to assessment. It doesn't do much good to reimagine what the learners do without reimagining what teachers do and how they will communicate that reimagined learning of the students.
I like the action zone. Ironically, I feel like secondary schools are probably better equipped to create this than post-secondary schools. You would need more hands on teaching from college professors and more time in class. And then I remember in a previous life as a teaching assistant dealing with college athletes who'd barely show up to class.
I’ve been cheering out loud with every successive paragraph I’ve read here, Nick. What you’re describing as a “classroom action zone“ is what I’ve been designing together with elders who remember what classroom learning used to be and are willing to do it again in their living rooms, one on one, with their grandchildren, based on short stories they are writing about their direct experience as a context for reflective conversation. You’re so right on here. And educational institutions are as far away from this kind of thinking as Jupiter is from the Earth. Thank you for writing this essay. More more more please!
This is all good - no argument from me. Except I work in the entirely online asynchronous world where the concept of the course itself is in the structured imagination of the learner. Creating action zones would rely on a certain amount of self-directed initiative - which is fine, but it then becomes resource intensive. I'm experimenting with a variety of vibe coding options to offer students an chance to see their written work in a tangible format, whether it is formal academic work or creative expression.
Excellent post, Nick. Progressive and constructivist educators have, for decades, argued for such changes, long before AI was a "threat" to the status quo. Will AI be the thing that finally makes us take real redesign steps?
Great post! The action zones concept is spot on-at least for reintroducing friction to the student. We're fighting an uphill battle with shrinking attention spans and administrative red tape that slows change-especially radical change in education. The solution also lies in embracing the whole child approach, where academics are reimagined and equally prioritized alongside developing grit, resilience, accountability, empathy, community and self-awareness to name a few. When we stop treating these as separate subjects and start seeing them as interconnected foundations for human development, we create learners who can truly engage with complexity and contribute meaningfully to their communities.
Great thoughts! But I would suggest that you are missing something critical -- it's not merely students who are caught in the gap -- it's teachers as well! They feel they are caught in a system that is based on an assessment system that insists on focusing on deficits -- what a student can't do as opposed to what they can! We still demand sorting and selecting and that's incompatible with the great ideas you're advocating. It won't do much good to change things for students in ways that you point to if we don't help teachers imagine a different way that will better encourage. The good news is that there ARE ways to accommodate both what you envision for students AND do it with a reimagined approach to assessment. It doesn't do much good to reimagine what the learners do without reimagining what teachers do and how they will communicate that reimagined learning of the students.
I like the action zone. Ironically, I feel like secondary schools are probably better equipped to create this than post-secondary schools. You would need more hands on teaching from college professors and more time in class. And then I remember in a previous life as a teaching assistant dealing with college athletes who'd barely show up to class.
I’ve been cheering out loud with every successive paragraph I’ve read here, Nick. What you’re describing as a “classroom action zone“ is what I’ve been designing together with elders who remember what classroom learning used to be and are willing to do it again in their living rooms, one on one, with their grandchildren, based on short stories they are writing about their direct experience as a context for reflective conversation. You’re so right on here. And educational institutions are as far away from this kind of thinking as Jupiter is from the Earth. Thank you for writing this essay. More more more please!
This is all good - no argument from me. Except I work in the entirely online asynchronous world where the concept of the course itself is in the structured imagination of the learner. Creating action zones would rely on a certain amount of self-directed initiative - which is fine, but it then becomes resource intensive. I'm experimenting with a variety of vibe coding options to offer students an chance to see their written work in a tangible format, whether it is formal academic work or creative expression.
Yes, I have done some thinking about asynchronous classrooms. Definitely a challenging context. Keep us posted on your experiments!
Excellent post, Nick. Progressive and constructivist educators have, for decades, argued for such changes, long before AI was a "threat" to the status quo. Will AI be the thing that finally makes us take real redesign steps?
I love the thinking in this post. Though I’m left wondering where the introverts fit into this approach (which seems to favour the extroverts)?
Great post! The action zones concept is spot on-at least for reintroducing friction to the student. We're fighting an uphill battle with shrinking attention spans and administrative red tape that slows change-especially radical change in education. The solution also lies in embracing the whole child approach, where academics are reimagined and equally prioritized alongside developing grit, resilience, accountability, empathy, community and self-awareness to name a few. When we stop treating these as separate subjects and start seeing them as interconnected foundations for human development, we create learners who can truly engage with complexity and contribute meaningfully to their communities.