Deeper Learning

21st Century STEM Academy implements a “Deeper Learning” approach whereby students apply what they have learned in one subject area to newly encountered situations in another and can also see how classwork relates to real life. How do we do this? We equip students to be like James Bond and MacGyver. At the beginning of the 007 movies, James Bond is given a set of gadgets, and throughout the movie we see how Bond uses them to solve various problems. In the same way, we teach students to use knowledge through forward-transfer, using a concept learned today to solve a problem in the future. On the other hand, when MacGyver faces a problem, he doesn’t have any gadgets to solve them; he draws backwards on what he knew before to create a solution to a current problem. This concept is known as backwards transfer, solving a problem today using something learned in the past. Our curriculum equips students for success by allowing them to practice transferring knowledge in both directions. This approach results in:
