Today's workplaces and communities -- and tomorrow's -- have tougher requirements than ever before. They need citizens who can think critically and strategically to solve problems. These individuals must learn in a rapidly changing environment, and build knowledge taken from numerous sources and different perspectives. They must understand systems in diverse contexts, and collaborate locally and around the globe.

These attributes contrast sharply with the discrete, low-level skills, content, and assessment methods that traditional ways of learning favor. The knowledge economy requirements for learning are incompatible with instruction that assumes the teacher is the information giver and the student a passive recipient.

Our framework builds upon a framework developed by Barbara Means of SRI International. Means identified seven variables that, when present in the classroom, indicate that effective teaching and learning are occurring.

These classroom variables are:
children are engaged in authentic and multidisciplinary tasks
assessments are based on students' performance of real tasks
students participate in interactive modes of instruction
students work collaboratively
students are grouped heterogeneously
the teacher is a facilitator in learning
students learn through exploration

We took these variables and reorganized them into a set of eight categories of learning and instruction: vision of learning, tasks, assessment, instruction, learning context, grouping, teacher roles, and student roles. We then expanded the definitions of Means' variables with information from recent research on learning and instruction:

1. Vision of Learning Indicators.

Vision of learning indicators describe the goals of engaged learning. These indicators underlie the philosophy and theme that drive all the other indicators discussed here - tasks, assessment, instruction, learning contexts, grouping, and teacher and student roles. We define engaged learning in terms of four indicators.

In engaged learning settings, students are responsible for their own learning; they take charge and are self-regulated. They define learning goals and problems that are meaningful to them; have a big picture of how specific activities relate to those goals; develop standards of excellence; and evaluate how well they have achieved their goals. They have alternative routes or strategies for attaining goals - and some strategies for correcting errors and redirecting themselves when their plans do not work. They know their own strengths and weaknesses and know how to deal with them productively and constructively. Engaged learners are also able to shape and manage change.

Engaged learners are strategic. They know how to learn and constantly develop and refine their learning and problem-solving strategies. This capacity for learning how to learn includes constructing effective mental models of knowledge even though the information may be very complex and changeable. Strategic learners can apply and transfer knowledge to solve problems creatively. They can make connections at different levels.

Engaged learners become energized by learning. They derive excitement and pleasure from learning. Learning is its own motivator and results in a lifelong passion for solving problems, understanding, and taking the next step in their thinking and activities.

Engaged learners are collaborative. They value others and work with them skillfully. Collaborative learners understand that learning is social, that they must be able to articulate their ideas to others and must have empathy and be fair-minded in dealing with contradictory or conflicting views. They have an ability to identify the strengths of others. Collaborative learners typically value diversity and multiple perspectives.

2. Task Indicators.

In engaged learning, tasks are authentic, challenging, and multi-disciplinary. Tasks are authentic when they are important to learners and learners use their knowledge of the subject matter in much the same way that real-life practitioners use that knowledge. Students learn authentic tasks in context, practicing basic and advanced skills together as a means to learning big concepts. In other words, they learn by doing.

Challenging tasks are typically complex and involve sustained amounts of time. They require students to stretch their thinking - and often their social skills. Challenging tasks are authentic in that they are about real-world problems and projects, build on life experiences, require in-depth work, and benefit from frequent collaboration.

Multidisciplinary work requires wholly integrated instruction. It blends disciplines into thematic or problem-solving pursuits, usually in the form of projects because most work in real life involves multidisciplinary projects.

3. Assessment Indicators.

Assessments that promote engaged learning ask students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in authentic tasks, projects, or investigations. Performance-based assessments are meaningful, challenging experiences that involve planning, development over time, presentations, and debriefings about what students learned. Students should take part as much as possible in planning the unit in which the assessment occurs, the criteria for evaluating the assessment, and various forms of self-assessments such as keeping journals.

Performance-based assessments are also generative. Students construct their knowledge and develop real products and services, perform in some way, organize events such as conferences, create artistic works, and the like for an audience that cares.

At its best, performance-based assessment is seamless and ongoing. That means that the plans, standards and criteria, products, performances, presentations, and debriefings are all instruction at the same time that they are assessment. And vice versa. Movement from one to the other is transparent to the student. Students generally perceive a well-designed hands-on assessment as a challenging and meaningful learning activity.

Performance-based assessments raise issues of equity and standards. It is critical to have equitable standards - ones that apply to all students. Parents and students, as well as teachers, should be familiar with those standards and be able to evaluate the performance of an individual or group against them.

4. Instructional Model Indicators.

The most powerful instruction is interactive and generative. Interactive instruction actively engages the learner with the resources and learning context to construct new knowledge and skills.

Generative instruction, like generative assessment, brings learners with different perspectives together to produce shared understandings. While learning in traditional instruction is a two-person situation (the teacher and the student), in generative instruction learning is a three-person situation (the teacher, the student, and others). Thus, in generative learning, there is co-construction of knowledge; learning occurs as the result of interactions among the learner, the teacher, and others.

All of these strategies encourage the learner to solve problems actively, conduct meaningful inquiry, reflect, and build a repertoire of effective learning strategies.

5. Learning Context Indicators.

Classrooms that foster engaged learning let students learn collaboratively. They are knowledge-building learning communities. Such communities create empathetic learning environments that build on diversity and many perspectives. These features are especially important in classrooms where there are marked differences in students' prior knowledge. In such classrooms, knowledge-building strategies - such as brainstorming - pool the knowledge and experiences of the group, thereby creating more equitable learning conditions for everyone and giving everyone access to the aggregate knowledge.