Oliver Quinlan: Letting kids follow their interests improves their learning

In a four-part video series for GETideas I travelled the world in 24 hours and asked four educators I admire what their "two stars and a wish" for learning would be for 2011. I'll blog the films here over the next week.

Oliver Quinlan, a primary school teacher in his first year of teaching in Birmingham, UK, blew people away at the BETT 2011 TeachMeet with his stories of how he gave up the inherent need of the teacher to know what's going to happen next in a lesson, and let students follow their interests. He expands on that in this short video:

"Children coming in and following what they're interested in has resulted in some of the most powerful learning experiences in my classroom. When a child chooses to understand more about the rocks they've brought in, the learning is deep. It takes time, we need to set that time aside.
I've also enjoyed spending longer on some texts, and haven't been afraid to revisit the same texts further down the line. What kids produce after a second chance at a topic, later on in the school year, is so much better than what is learnt and produced in the timetabled time.

"And that is my wish - I wish we could find more flexible, alternative timetabling methods that allow students to do these kinds of things. We need longer periods of time, the ability to not finish a topic, but to revisit it months later."

Related articles

• Jamie's Dream School, Channel 4, preview (telegraph.co.uk)
• If you truly want to engage pupils, relinquish the reins and give them the chance to learn by doing (edu.blogs.com)

Comments

[Cailey Crawford]

You have no idea how this has inspired me regarding some future directions for work I'm doing in Canada on an initiative called What did you do in school today? I've already emailed my colleagues to see how we can ask similar questions of folks involved in this initiative who are spread across the country and are often isolated in silos. What a simple, yet effective way, to gather great ideas and connect teachers to others involved in educational change.

Thanks so much for the great work,
Cailey Crawford
Director, Strategic Partnerships
Canadian Education Association

[William M Davis]

This is to awesome, and after reading your blog, I have decided to give lecture to my students using this blog as my reference. Due to your blog I learnt a lot.