The next step Deep River takes when designing a creative, meaningful, and fun learning experience is to think about how.
“How” is the fulcrum between “why” and “what,” the pivot point that makes or breaks how successfully we can translate our idea into reality. “How” is the beginning of engagement.
Engagement is alive when our curiosity is activated. Because we’re interested, we’re willing to invest time and energy in learning. If it’s a really great experience, we can enter a state of flow, where time seems to disappear and our entire being is involved.
Deep River creates engaging learning experiences through incorporating:
- first and foremost, a focus on learners and their needs, goals, and desires
- a variety of ways to participate or learn
- active experiences, including hands-on learning and making
- meaningful and relevant challenges
- ample opportunities for learners to ask and explore their own questions
- a learning environment where it’s safe to try new things
- opportunities to deepen creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and empathy skills
Finding the most successful approach to “how” relies on asking the right questions at the right time. Not “How are we going to do this?” or “How are we going to pay for this?” or “How long will it take?” Those questions will come into play later. Instead, Deep River asks these how questions when designing a learning experience:
- how does this help cultivate a fertile and inspiring learning environment?
- how does this move the ball forward toward the learning goals?
- how does this encourage habits of mind such as creativity, embracing risk, and letting go of fear?
- how does this align with what matters to the learners?
- how does this open doors to even more new ideas?
- how does this make my community and my world a better place?
How can Deep River help you create meaningful, engaging learning experiences that matter?