An example from my personal life:
My 18 son just completed year 12, and in Victoria, Australia, students normally do VCE (Victorian Certificate of Education), although a small minority elect to do IB (International Baccalaureate). I know that in other countries IB is more popular, but here it’s relatively unknown. When making a decision at the end of year 10, one of my main fears was that this challenging course would mean that my son’s ENTER score (which determines entry to tertiary level) would be compromised. Maybe it was easier or at least more predictable to stick with VCE. I’m not putting VCE down, but quite a few subjects are at a higher standard in IB (eg. English, which is literature, and psychology), and there is an extra subject, Theory of Knowledge, as well as an extended essay, which, as far as I’m concerned, is like a mini thesis in its requirements for research and referencing.

Now that he has finished, I realise that he has developed wonderful, transferable skills that will be invaluable at university, for example, higher order thinking, flexibility in approaching a problem, self management, sound research skills, confidence and many more. Whatever result he gets, he is well prepared for university and life.

Thus, the push in recent times concerning so-called ‘authentic learning’ – learning based on trying to come up with solutions to so-called ‘real-world’ problems.

There is a similar nod to the centrality of relevance underpinning the ‘driving questions’ approach to teaching and learning.

This approach is predicated on the belief that the very best questions are those that lead to more questions: questions that excite and motivate students to find out more (deep understanding of content) whilst at the same time challenging learners to consider where they might find appropriate information, what critical questions they should be applying to information found (e.g. “Who is saying this?” “What vested interests might they have that could compromise their objectivity?” “How might the accuracy of what they are saying be checked?” “What issues aren’t they addressing that might be germane?” etc), to share ideas about what areas or issues they might need to find out more about in order to be able to formulate informed opinions or proffer credible solutions, to consider how what they are learning in one knowledge domain might further inform and illuminate what they already know in other knowledge domains, and so on. All of this, and more, comes under the heading of developing skills. Many of these skills are transferable across disciplines, have significant and enduring utility, and are basic precursors for developing more effective learners.

The more I work with students using such approaches, the more I come to realise that, if the point of the exercise is to produce thinkers who have the self-belief, the interest, and the knowledge and skills to be life-long learners, who know how to be masters of their own future education in a changing world, then, though skills can’t develop in a content vacuum (so some content is required), the actual choice of content is often of secondary consequence .

Often, a ‘big question’ or ‘driving question’ will enable an astute teacher/mentor to utilise disparate student interests and thus varied content/contexts to get things rolling. If the students are motivated, by whatever means, to come to grips with the driving question (and then the subsequent questions that the driving question raises), this can be the spark for them to develop some enduring, transferable/generic skills (particularly those skills central to learning how to learn) and become more effective learners.