Interest-Based Learning

What if we could build more creative, integrated, and equitable school communities? What if students were able to take part in interest-based experiences all year long? What if one day a week was dedicated entirely to these experiences? What if these experiences happened in four or six-week rotations to allow students to take part in dozens of them throughout their high school career? What if faculty set an example for intrinsic motivation and lifelong learning on a weekly basis? What if students could use these experiences to declare a concentration like Arts, STEM, or Citizenship on their diplomas? And, what if these experiences were tied not to department or discipline credits, but transferrable skills, graduation standards, and a personal learning process?

These are some of the questions we would like to try to answer during our time as Rowland Fellows in order to create an interest-based, embedded program at CVU that allows students to practice skills, gain knowledge, and meet proficiencies through regularly-scheduled experiences of their choosing.

Interest-based learning directly relates to knowledge and skill “acquisition since interest contributes to deep-level information processing with stronger elaborations and connections to prior knowledge and [because of this] produces long-term engagement” (Sturmer, Koenigs, & Seidel, 2015). With that said, interest-based learning in schools most often takes on one of two forms: alternative models only available to a limited number of students, or as a one-off project in a traditional class. This leaves the vast majority of high schoolers wanting more. Our Rowland Fellowship will help us create a program that bridges this gap in an intentional and meaningful way, putting students and their interests at the forefront.