What innovative approaches can you use to design a curriculum that engages all learners?

The first step in designing the curriculum is to understand the relevance background learners have in the context/topic taken up. This can help in aligning the difficulty level, examples and case studies to be used in the class.

Differentiated Instructions would really help I think. Customising instructions to meet the individual needs of learners is the key I guess. This can involve providing varied content, processes, and product based on students readiness, interests and learning profile.

Designing a curriculum that engages all learners requires innovative approaches that cater to diverse learning styles, abilities, and interests. I love the use of gamification. II like to introduce game elements into the curriculum to make learning more engaging and motivating.

'Understanding your learners' needs considered in two parts. First of all, they have particular areas of a discipline or curriculum that they're keen on, and where they have strengths. So the response to that can be more adventurous extension activities, or placing them in a group with some weaker learners, for example. But the second consideration is how you can help them see what they don't know they don't know. Just because a learner has a preference for A, B or C, doesn't mean that they've yet considered X, Y or Z. So it's important not just to pander to some notion that a learner has a 'preferred' way of learning - we've got to equip them with new ways of learning that they don't even know yet. That is challenging for some students!

Lo más importante es escuchar a los jóven@s y observarl@s sin prejuicios. Existen muchas circunstancias en el estudiante y a su alrededor. Y en ocasiones puede ser difícil para ellos mismos, saber que quieren estudiar, cuando no conocen todas las opciones. No basta con una educación inclusiva, si no está dirigida y reforzada por educadores con una comunicación asertiva y empática.

Interdisciplinary learning might well be the goal some of the time, but it can be challenging for learners to manage if they have several of these rich, intense projects happening at the same time. Consider breaking up the year with some short 'design briefs' (where students have a problem to solve and the end product is somewhat decided), some 'masterclass' style direct instruction, where students have to respond to more open questions using what they've learned, or some thematic learning, where a selection of resources are used separately before a culminating project or task. Too many schools attempt to "be a PBL school", for example, which can lead to a relatively bland and samey diet of learning for students. Keep it varied!

In my experience working with a group of young individuals with various abilities, I have observed the positive outcomes achieved through the use of role-play dynamics. These experiences have proven effective in uncovering and enhancing skills and capacities that participants were unaware they possessed. Furthermore, this approach boosts self-esteem, particularly in teenagers grappling with social isolation issues.

Personalization is key. By creating a unique experience for each participant, tailored to their strengths, needs, interests, and objectives, we can break away from the 'one-size-fits-all' model. Opting for a dynamic, learner-centered empowers them on their individual learning journeys. This personalized touch transforms the learning experience, making it more engaging and effective for each learner.

Empowerment comes down to three key ideas: 1. Training Curriculum design is evolving fast enough that teachers will always benefit from some focussed training on both curriculum and approaches to learning / skills that the can teach young people. The more young people are equipped with thinking routines and metacognition skills, the more freedom teachers have to create varied activities and hand over more responsibility to them. 2. Time to plan together Co-planning is a creative activity that adds incredible value as professional learning activity, too. 3. Opportunities to see other teach Nothing beats seeing how another teacher approaches a new curriculum design.

When my previous school implemented a new science curriculum, as head of science I made it my first target to support and train the teachers. Especially the new ECT,s (new teachers in the profession). I sat with them every two weeks and guided them in their lesson planning and what resources to use. Also, I did CPD on how to deliver engaging practical investigations for various age groups. I was part of a subject leadership group that focused on implement a culture where we encourage teachers to ask for advice and support with subjects they particularly didn’t feel confident in or have strong subject knowledge on. I genuinely believe supporting teachers and empowering them as a priority develops your curriculum and enhances creativity.

There is no such thing as a curriculum that engages ALL learners— different people are engaged by different things at different times. Better to ask the question as: How can we design an individually engaging curriculum for EACH person, even if we need 2 billion of them. The answer is to build each person’s curriculum around their personal dreams, strengths, and passions, and around the problems they want to see fixed and the people they want to help. This is now possible. Building any kind of common curriculum for all is just a form of top down control, no matter how important we may think its contents are. What we need now is to liberate young people’s imaginations. The only constraint we should put on our young people is not to do harm.

A "curriculum" is typically created by adults far away from schools. It is adult-centric. It provides no voice or choice for students. The notion of a "curriculum" needs to be radically transformed. A future-ready curriculum will provide students opportunities to be change-makers while at school. They will be able to make decisions around the challenges they want to confront, explore and create solutions for. This curriculum will be authentic (real world application), relevant (to the current and future needs of students) and transferrable (skills, knowledge etc will be immediately transferrable).