Avenue for Learning: Exploring Diverse Educational Pathways

The term "avenue" typically conjures images of a wide, tree-lined street, a bustling thoroughfare designated as "Ave." However, avenue also signifies "any approach to doing something", a pathway or means to achieve a goal. This definition extends meaningfully into the realm of education, where various avenues exist for acquiring knowledge, developing skills, and fostering personal growth. This article explores the diverse avenues for learning, from traditional academic routes to alternative approaches like arts integration, microlearning, and community engagement, emphasizing the importance of personalized and relational learning experiences.

The Traditional Avenue: Post-Secondary Education

The conventional avenue for learning often involves pursuing a college degree. The push to send more kids to college is a common theme in modern society. The underlying question is whether a traditional education is the best way to equip individuals with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed. While a college education holds value for many, it is not necessarily the only or the best path for everyone.

Alternative Avenues: Vocational Training and the Trades

An alternative avenue lies in vocational training and the trades. There’s a young man I know, about 22 years old, who attended a trade school and learned about auto mechanics. He LOVES cars. He can tell you nearly anything you want to know about an engine. He can fix nearly any vehicle. At this time, he is employed by a very large company in our city, and he makes a very nice living. More importantly, he’s very happy doing what he does. For some, acquiring a specific skill set through trade schools or apprenticeships can lead to fulfilling and financially rewarding careers. The key is aligning education with individual passions and aptitudes.

Microlearning: Bite-Sized Knowledge

Microlearning presents another avenue for learning, characterized as a short event with typically one objective. The content in a microlearning unit assumes any manner of forms, such as a video, quiz, game, Ted Talk, or simply a person guiding the learner to perform a new task, where the learner is acquiring knowledge or a skill. In whichever manner the training occurs, the focus is on a narrow concept or topic that enables the learner to benefit with an immediate result. Another added benefit is the short time needed for the learner to gain the new concept, skill or knowledge.

Microlearning units can introduce potential learners to various topics, engaging them through meaningful experiences and critical thinking elements. The University of Miami is targeting clubs with the largest memberships first and introducing a program track that begins with microlearning units. The concept is to develop a partnership where the club members can be introduced to online certificate programs offered by the University of Miami that would benefit the teams and the businesses that support them. Upon completion of all five units, the learner earns a certificate with both the university and club logos.

Read also: Learning to trust when it's hard

Arts Integration: A Creative Pathway

Arts Integration is a research-based curricular strategy and has been utilized in classrooms for more than 30 years. In arts integration, the arts are an avenue through which students apply and connect the previously taught content. The arts are not servicing the content. One of the hallmarks of Arts Integration is that it is grounded in connected standards. When you're creating or teaching a lesson, ask yourself: what standards am I addressing in both the content and the arts area? When you're working in an arts integration lesson, you'll feel like the line between the content and the arts is blurred. That's a good thing!

For schools that commit to using arts integration with integrity, the results are astounding. Instead, schools must be brave enough to look beyond traditional approaches (which yield very little result) for approaches like Arts Integration and STEAM that have a proven track record of working. Students become active participants in their learning when the arts are intentionally integrated. Students engage in critical thinking and construct personal meaning through their learning in arts-integrated lessons. They develop the skills to work through problem-solving and to innovate new solutions. Instructors become facilitators of creative learning and are empowered in their own professional growth.

The Arts Integration Continuum

On one side of the continuum is Arts Enhancement. This is where we're using the arts in service of another content area - the arts are making the content "sticky". On the other side of the scale is Arts Integration. The cupcake with icing looks and tastes great. But, you could remove the icing from the top and the cake would stay in tact. This is like an Arts Enhancement lesson. On the other hand, a blueberry muffin also looks and tastes good. But if you tried to remove the blueberries from the muffin, your muffin would crumble. This is like an Arts Integration lesson. Both Arts Enhancement and Arts Integration are great! Just like cupcakes and muffins are both excellent pastries. In between these two ends of the scale, there are 3 other sections: theme-based instruction, inquiry-based learning, and co-taught instruction. Each of these are a shade of arts integration. Each has a specific practice and purpose. What's most important to remember about the Continuum is this: not everything is meant to be fully arts integrated, nor can we always keep everything arts enhanced.

Key Performance Metrics for Arts Integration

As you're building your vision, there are some key performance metrics that are helpful to keep in mind. First, you need to have an established vision for using arts integration and it should be visible throughout the school. It's not enough to just have a great visionary statement. We need to see it. I've seen schools do this in a number of ways - from painting a wall with whiteboard paint in the lobby with the day's arts integration lessons being taught, to posting student artwork and multimedia installations out in the hallways with artist statements. There also has to be a clear understanding of the arts integration approach by all stakeholders - teachers, students, parents and community members. Another big metric is the data you keep. Are you collecting, analyzing and making adjustments to your integrated instruction based on peer reviews, reflection and formal data? Do you make room for regular collaborative planning intervals that include cross-teams of grade-level/content/arts area teachers? Is direct arts instruction available to all students? Schedules should be reviewed and revised to provide time for arts integration during the school day within the classroom. And finally, do you have actively established and cultivated community and arts partnerships for sustainability? It's not enough to have a nice long list of partners and potential partners. Each of these metrics will help guide your next steps. Don't take them as a judgment of the quality of your program.

Technology-Enhanced Language Learning (TELL)

In August 2020 a new platform for adult newcomer language instruction was released by New Language Solutions (NLS) on Avenue.ca. NLS recognized the need for standards to support effective use of Avenue and technology-enhanced language learning (TELL) in online and blended classes. Concluding that existing technology standards from ISTE and TESOL were too broad for their purposes, NLS initiated a project to develop their own technology standards for Avenue stakeholders including instructors, programs, and learners. These would not be performance evaluation tools but rather best used for self-assessment and for guiding local innovation.

The Avenue standards for instructors, programs, and learners with their support materials will be released under a Creative Commons license so that others may freely use and adapt them for non-commercial purposes (with attribution). NLS and the development team hope that the Avenue standards will guide development of learning technology standards beyond Canadian settlement language training.

The Avenue Technology Standards for Language Programs

The Avenue Technology Standards for Language Programs assist administrators at all levels when making and implementing decisions about technology use. Collaboration is encouraged; programs are best served when stakeholders are well-informed, planning ahead, and working together to improve learner outcomes. The five standards may be implemented in different ways, depending on resources available, but they should guide decision-making and requests for funding.

The Avenue Learning Technology Standards for Language Learners

The Avenue Learning Technology Standards for Language Learners are designed to give instructors and administrators a framework for providing lessons and course offerings that build learner competence with technology, primarily for language learning and use. The aim is to enable learners to use digital tools to be more autonomous towards achieving their language goals. As in instructor and program standards, learner standards include a guiding philosophy for the standards, followed by four standards with performance indicators and sub-indicators. Descriptive text is added where needed for clarification. Reflection questions are included for administrators and instructors, along with related tasks for learners.

Instructor Standards

Here is an abbreviated overview of the instructor standards. There are seven standards targeting the specific needs of the settlement language sector in Canada. Below is Standard 4 with its seven performance indicators (PIs). Each PI has an explanatory text, a reflection question, and a set of “can-do” statements for self-evaluation. PI 4.1. In a blended, hybrid, or fully online class, learners are often expected to attend a synchronous session, engage in pair or group work, ask questions, or present to their peers. This may be a frustrating experience if your learners do not participate as planned. You may be compensating by doing the speaking most of the time. To create a welcoming class, acknowledge early on that the dynamics in a Big Blue Button or Zoom session are different than in-person sessions. This can help address learner anxiety and inhibitions. For example, you could dedicate the first session to an orientation about how and why the dynamics in an online class are different. Encourage your learners to ask questions. Introduce guidelines around active participation, group or pair work, turn-taking, and agreeing or disagreeing with peers respectfully in synchronous and asynchronous sessions. Reflection: Think of strategies and practices that you incorporate in your online sessions. What works and what doesn’t work? PI 4.2. PI 4.3. PI 4.4. PI 4.7.

Creating Positive Learning Environments: Addressing Bullying and Promoting Upstanding Behavior

There are multiple curriculum resources that go into all the things students should do to avoid being a bully. While some of them include some positively expressed behaviors (things you should DO), most of the resources and posters focus on behaviors to avoid. What they didn’t always understand, at first, was that bullying often happens quietly… and with all the focus on how not to BE a bully, they didn’t always get the message about how to recognize what bullying can look like when it’s happening to someone else, and what you should DO if you witness someone else bullying.

Without the desired behavior- “if you see THIS happening, then you should do xyz“- the human condition is more likely to freeze and/or mind one’s business, especially if there are others around who also haven’t practiced what to do. By explicitly identifying and then modeling and practicing a desired behavior, we found that our students were more likely to step in and step up when the occasion arose. The best of humanity choosing to be upstanding.

Rethinking the Use of AI in Education

The fact is, I really and truly believe we need to rethink the use of AI in education. After talking with teachers, I know that many are worried about how to deal with students using AI to cheat. Those same teachers have to use AI to grade student work, because of an unrealistic workload. When we use bots to stand in for DEEPLY HUMAN INTERACTIONS, we create problems for children.

The Importance of Personal and Relational Learning

As educators, we know there are building blocks to each new skill and concept, and so many of those building blocks - how they are initially acquired, stored in short and long term memory, retrieved, etc. - can appear in a child’s life very differently than they do for another child. Because of these differences in experience, how we teach students new material must be personal and relational.

Deeply personal learning experiences can be messy, time-consuming, and are anything but efficient. So much of US education today is about systems and efficiency.

Learning is deeply personal and relational. What we have learned at Anastasis is, that challenging the system- the status quo, thinking about the kids as the starting point… all of that is possible. When you design a living curriculum around the needs of children, the learning IS personal and relational.

The Dangers of AI Tutors

I’ve read advertising copy from several companies trying to sell AI tutors to schools, especially those with large class sizes, as a solution to helping meet each student’s individual needs. Use our AI tutor for any of these situations! But an AI tutor is a poor substitute that tries to replace a necessary human interaction. It’s not personal. It’s not relational.

Humans tend to anthropomorphize THINGS, and there’s very real harm to our mental health when we are unable to balance this with real-life experiences. Bots that “converse” or “teach” children are programmed to be simulations of human interactions.

We already know that our educational system is not equitable. By tying school finances and funding to property taxes, schools in the United States vary greatly in resources allocated for students. Now throw in who gets actual face time with a human teacher? Who gets assigned an AI tutor? As I mentioned above, tutoring is a personal and relational experience. If a student is struggling with the directions given by a teacher, sure. An AI Tutor Bot could repeat the instructions. But, as a teacher, I have a lot of tools already where I can share the written directions, accompanied by an audio file of ME reading the instructions, available without having to use a bot. Maybe the student needs a more in-depth explanation of what we just learned. An AI tutor doesn’t know WHY that student needs more explanation. Maybe they didn’t sleep well the night before. Maybe they’re hungry. Maybe they need to move around the room. Maybe they didn’t have context for the new concept. There are endless reasons why a student might need more explanation, and an AI tutor cannot read that in a child… NOR DO I WANT IT TO TRY. If a kid needs more explanation, I can bring them into a small group. I can partner that student with other students to learn together.

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