The Smart Schools principles for good education, developed by David
Perkins and colleagues at Harvard Project Zero, are based on the two guiding beliefs:
- Learning is a consequence of thinking, and good thinking is learnable by all students.
- Learning should include deep understanding, which involves the flexible, active use of
knowledge.
These principles provide a structure for schools with a vision of a learning community
that is steeped in thinking and deep understanding, that engenders respect for all its
members, and that produces students ready to face the world as responsible, thinking
members of a diverse society. This vision of good education serves as a foundation for
consultative relationships between Project Zero and school systems with similar goals.
There are seven key principles in a Smart School.
- Generative knowledge. Schools must examine carefully what disciplinary and
interdisciplinary content will most benefit students. Identifying and structuring content
which has the greatest potential for students' development is an important starting point
for the Smart Schools model.
- Learnable intelligence. Contrary to a psychological tradition that tends to view
intelligence as a fixed quantity, much of the research of Project Zero and others'
indicates that students can and do learn ways of thinking that can boost their
performance. The integration of the teaching of higher order thinking into subject matter
instruction and the creation of a school culture that champions and scaffolds such
thinking can have a significant effect on students' own views of their abilities and on
their learning.
- Focus on understanding. While there are many legitimate goals for students, often
a focus on deep understanding gets lost in the day-to-day life of the school. In the Smart
Schools model, we place an emphasis on student work that builds and demonstrates deep
understanding in contrast to rote or narrowly defined outcomes.
- Teaching for mastery and transfer. A simple but powerful maxim of education is
that students learn much of what they have a reasonable opportunity and motivation to
learn. Teaching techniques that explicitly model, scaffold, motivate, and help students to
bridge what they learn to new contexts (i.e., transfer) greatly enhance the likelihood
that students will learn well and actively use what they learn.
- Learning-centered assessment. Assessment at its best functions as a reflective
and evaluative tool for learning. It involves students as well as teachers and creates a
dynamic in which students take on the ultimate responsibility for the quality of their
work and their learning.
- Embracing complexity. Insightful thinking and deep understanding require students
to be able to deal with and even thrive on complex situations and problems. The Smart
Schools model involves learning situations that help students build skills and tolerance
for complexity and begin to develop a sense of excitement in the face of intriguing and
difficult problems. It also supports teachers in managing the complexities of new
viewpoints and practices.
- The school as a learning organization. Just as schools are places of growth for
children, they should be places of growth for faculty and administrators - places where
the pursuit of intellectual interests and professional collaborations are supported and
encouraged. In addition, the successful learning organization institutes structures that
enable all members of the school community to collaborate in the processes of
direction-setting and self-monitoring, creating a dynamic system that changes as the needs
and the vision of the community changes.
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