Qualities of Meaningful Learning

A. Intentionality: Uses clearly articulated learning goals to design learing tasks and the assessment of learning progress.

B. Content centrality: Aligns learning goals and tasks with the big ideas, essential questions, and methods of inquiry that are central to the discipline.

C. Authentic work: Constructs multifaceted learning tasks that represent the challenges, problems, and thinking skills required outside the classroom.

D. Active inquiry: Uses a disciplined inquiry process for learning that builds on students' own questions and develops habits of mind that foster high levels of thinking.

D. Construction of mental models: Embeds the articulation of cognitive models o fcontent within the learning tasks.

E. Collaborative work: Learning tasks are designed so that students working together adds value to achieving learning outcomes.

From: Meaningful Learning Using Technology: What Educators Need to Know and Do, Elizabeth A. Ashburn and Robert E. Floden (Eds.) , Teachers College Press, New York , ISBN: 0807746843