Connectedness to the world
Is the lesson, activity, or task connected to competencies or concerns beyond the classroom?
Connectedness describes the extent to which the lesson has value and meaning beyond the instructional context, making a connection to the larger social context within which students live.
Two areas in which student work can exhibit some degree of connectedness are:
- a real-world public problem; i.e., students confront an actual contemporary issue or problem, such as applying statistical analysis in preparing a report to the City Council on the homeless;
- students' personal experiences; i.e., the lesson focuses directly or builds upon students' actual experiences or situations. A high level of connectedness can be achieved when the lesson entails one or both of these.
In a low-connectedness lesson with little or no value beyond the classroom, activities are deemed important for success only in school (now or later), but for no other aspects of life. Student work has no impact on others and serves only to certify their level of competence or compliance with the norms and routines of formal schooling.
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Lesson topic and activities have no clear connection to anything beyond itself; the teacher offers no justification beyond the need to perform well in class.
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Students study a topic, problem or issue that the teacher succeeds in connecting to students' actual experiences or to a contemporary public situation.
Students recognize some connection between classroom knowledge and situations outside the classroom, but they do not explore the implications of these connections which remain abstract or hypothetical.
There is no effort to actually influence a larger audience.
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Students study or work on a topic, problem or issue that the teacher and students see as connected to their personal experiences or actual contemporary public situations.
Students recognize the connection between classroom knowledge and situations outside the classroom.
They explore these connections in ways that create personal meaning and significance for the knowledge.
This meaning and significance are strong enough to lead students to become involved in an effort to affect or influence a larger audience beyond their classroom in one of the following ways: by communicating knowledge to others (including within the school), advocating solutions to social problems providing assistance to people, creating performances or products with utilitarian or aesthetic value.
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A year 10 English class was provided with the opportunity to conduct an independent unit. The only requirement was that students had to provide a written product and had to present their project to the class.
The criteria for the unit were decided in conjunction with the students. Some of the topics which were covered by students in this class included 'How to do a PowerPoint presentation', 'How to maintain a bicycle', 'How to do sign language', 'How to take good photographs' and 'How to do Japanese cooking'.
In each case the students saw the topics as having value outside of the class. Indeed there was some suggestion, for example, that the students learning how to do PowerPoint presentations would be able to in-service some of the staff. The students learning sign language articulated a number of uses to which they wanted to put their new-found skills. The two students who were creating a manual on how to maintain a bicycle were discussing ways in which they could market their booklet in the community.
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