MIESS Model of Learning
Our integrated model has three major components to it: integrated studies, student-led inquiry, and skills-focused planning and learning.
Integrated Studies
Integrated studies is something that many teachers have been doing regularly for years. You may remember back to your own school days when you did a project in Social Studies or Science. Often, you would also be marked on your grammar and spelling, or speaking and presentation skills, even though those things are part of the English curriculum rather than the Socials or Science curriculum. What you may or may not have known is that your teacher was probably using that portion of your project as a part of your English mark, even though it was a Socials or Science project. This practice is integrated studies — combining more than one curriculum in the same study or project.
Our model takes this concept further, combining more than just two subject areas. For example, in a project about electricity, rather than simply learning the physics behind how electricity works (Science) and learning good presentation and grammar skills (English), students can combine other knowledge from Social Studies and Math into the project to gain a deeper and more holistic understanding of electricity. For example, a student could investigate how Canada was affected by the invention of electricity at the turn of the 20th century, or how electricity was used in the industrial revolution or WWI/WWII, or even how electricity affects our society in the 21st century (all topics relating to Social Studies curriculum). As well, students can learn about algebra, equations, polynomials, square roots, basic operations, and many other Math concepts through working out real problems related to the physics of electricity. Not to mention, students will also have the potential to learn Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies curriculum through their use of technology in their projects (e.g. website creation as a presentation tool, or data management through use of spreadsheets). Really, any curriculum can be added to a project in the right context.
Integrated studies helps prepare students for jobs and experiences in their future, because life isn’t segregated into subjects. Working at a mine, one might need to know how to operate the machinery and read the manuals in order to avoid an emergency situation (English/Applied Technology), how slopes of rock react to base rock being extracted (Math/Geology), the weight of a maximum load a truck can carry (Math), and how the price of coal affects production on a global level (Socials), among many other things. Farmers have to know how much land they have to plant on (Math), the cost of materials vs the gains made through production (Math), what their crops need to be more successful (Biology), how to get more money for their yield through sales and technology (English, Applied Technology), the cost of food production in Canada and how that affects both their bottom line and Canadian consumers (Socials), and the environmental and social impacts of the growing debate over organic food and the anti-GMO movement (Socials).
Student-Led Inquiry
Life is full of so many interesting things that nobody can learn about all of them, but everyone can find something interesting to learn about. So, rather than force students to ask questions and retain information about topics they may not be interested in, our model gives students the power to choose what questions they are going to ask. Many adults complain at some point about the things they learned in school that they never actually used in their life after graduation. Our model lets students take more ownership over the things they learn and to seek out the knowledge that they are naturally curious about or that may better prepare them for achieving their future goals. Of course, curiosity comes with questions, which is what inquiry is — investigating things in a deeper context by asking questions and finding answers to those questions. We hope to help foster students' sense of curiosity and give them the tools to explore the world around them while also developing their skills.
Skills-Focused Planning
The philosophy behind skills-focused planning asks the question: is it more important for students to learn facts or is it thinking skills that really matter? If you think back to the concepts you learned in school, does the subject matter you learned — how plants grow, who Louis Riel was, what the square root of i is — really matter in the grand scheme of your education? As an educator, I can tell you that these random facts were likely secondary to the skills you obtained while learning them. While you were learning how plants grow (e.g. by planting a bean in a styrofoam cup of soil), you were also learning how to conduct an experiment, how to monitor an experiment over an extended period of time, how to make good observations, how to report to others on the things you saw, how to compare your experiment to others’ experiments, how to ask good questions (like, does it matter which way we plant the bean, and if not, how does it know which way to grow?), among many other important skills.
So why do so many adults not remember the skills they were acquiring while learning content and facts? We believe this is because they were not explicitly taught what skills they were developing, and that if students are aware of their skill development, they will see their education as more valuable.
By focusing on skills, we also have an easier time creating multi-grade learning opportunities and differentiating for students who may be above or below grade level. This is because skills scaffold much more easily than content and topics. Content often changes between grades and even units, making it more difficult for students to gain a deep understanding of what they are learning. Skills progression, however, is in life — and in many curriculums — linear and often spans multiple ages/grades (e.g. MIESS Summary of BC Curricular Competencies — grades 4/5/6/7), thus allowing students to focus on continually developing their skills over time.