Top-Down Education

A teacher guides the instruction, the activity, the conversation, and the
specific output. In this approach, the student receives knowledge from an
instructor, then tests that knowledge through application, building greater
understanding and clarifying confusion along the way.Abr 4, 2016

Over the last four weeks you’ve heard from different members of the
Edmentum team reflecting on insights and key takeaways gained from
attending SXSWedu 2016. To bring this series to a close, I want to
direct your attention to more than just a specific session or speaker,
but to a larger conversation felt throughout the conference—the
conversation about top-down vs. bottom-up education.

As I attended different educator-led panel discussions, heard

policymakers debate, and listened to researchers expound on their
findings, this theme of top-down vs. bottom-up education emerged
time and again. So, after four enlightening days spent in Austin, I
came back with pages of notes attempting to shed light on what the
differences between top-down and bottom-up education are and
what’s behind the shift toward the bottom-up model. Here’s my
overview:

Top-Down Education

This is the traditional form of education many of us grew up with. A

teacher guides the instruction, the activity, the conversation, and the
specific output. In this approach, the student receives knowledge from
an instructor, then tests that knowledge through application, building
greater understanding and clarifying confusion along the way.

This approach gives the teacher direct control over how students
access material and allows the educator to focus student attention on
exactly what students “need to know.” In many cases, this approach
provides a tried and true method for teaching content, but it doesn’t
always foster development of critical thinking skills and creativity for
students.

Bottom-Up Education

To some, this feels like a New Age brand of education. Phrases such
as “self-directed,” “inquiry-based,” and “student agency” all fit under
the umbrella known as bottom-up education.

In this approach, the student starts with a topic or a question, performs

self-directed research or experimentation, and ultimately, arrives at
explicit knowledge. The general rule of this approach is that students
use inductive reasoning gained from observation to arrive at deeper
understanding. Many tout the benefits of this approach, as it teaches
students how to seek knowledge on their own, even outside of the
classroom.

So, what can bottom-up education look like? Here are three distinct
models:

Project-Based Learning

Big Picture Learning, created by cofounders Dennis Littky and Elliot

Washor, offers one example of project-based learning with a
groundbreaking educational model. The two creators hosted a “Car
Talk” session, where they shared their school mission via interviews
with three current students. They established their school model in
1995 with the mission to allow students to identify their interests and
engage in authentic and relevant learning experiences through
semester-long projects of their choosing. At the center of their
approach, they strive to ensure that students are actively invested in
their learning and challenged to pursue their interests—something that
holds true for all of those who dip a toe into the project-based learning
pool.

The Maker Movement

Keynote speaker, Ayah Bdeir, the founder and CEO of littleBits,
probably covered this topic best in her conversation with Education
Week editor Sean Cavanagh. Her easy-to-use electronic building
blocks, known as littleBits, made it into the classroom long before they
were ever marketed as education tools. Throughout her presentation,
she shared many examples of students utilizing littleBits as the basis
of scientific exploration, invention, and even community building.
These manipulative objects illustrate the popularity of the maker
movement and the desire for real-world problem solving as a means
of exploring complex concepts in the classroom. Even more important
than the specific tool that is used, Bdeir remarked on the future of
education as involving a shift from learning that is imposed on the
student to the student pulling learning out of an experimental task.

Game-Based Learning

Jackson Westenskow, school design team lead with Institute of Play,

participated in a panel discussion specifically on the topic of student-
centered learning, citing gaming and playing as key principles for
creating powerful learning experiences. The Institute of Play views the
ability to think, solve complex problems, and interact critically through
language and media as skills on par with reading, writing, and math. In
accordance with these values, Westenskow highlighted the abilities of
gaming to infuse such higher-level skills into the learning process.
Through gaming, learning happens by doing, failure is reframed as
iteration, and feedback is immediate and ongoing. Recognizing the
power of gaming will be key to understanding and continuing to shape
the future of education, as the trend of gamification finds its way into
more and more classrooms.

SXSWedu 2016 presented an outstanding chance to hear and

participate in some of the most important conversations currently
taking place in education. Want to learn about some of our other key
takeaways from the conference? Check out these posts on the
conference keynotes, thinking types and skills-based learning, and the
power of storytelling in education!
Interested in learning more about Edmentum’s online solutions to
support and empower both students and teachers? Find out how
we’re Moving Education Forward.