EDUCATION MATTERS—SANFORD SCHOOL'S PRIVATE SCHOOL BLOG

It may seem like the best students are those who breeze through classes without breaking a sweat--acing the tests without studying and writing papers in only one night. But when those same kids come across a class that they can’t pass in their sleep, they may quickly crumble in the face of a challenge. While it could feel a bit counterintuitive, sometimes the best way to teach kids to be successful is by making things a little more difficult for them.

Authentic learning is messy, loud, and somewhat chaotic as students grapple with application of their ideas and classroom learning to solve a problem. Authentic learning is active, creative, and fun. 

What Does Authentic Learning Look LIke?

Student teams discuss their thinking, develop and implement a plan of action, and get to work. Some plans fail, and students learn to quickly adapt their thinking and craft new solutions as they work within time constraints.

This ebb and flow of successes and failures is part of authentic learning, and students learn more from failures than successes.