In my work helping teachers to shift from whole group, teacher-led lessons to differentiated small group student-centered learning experiences, I am asked questions that seem grounded in the belief that students cannot learn without the teacher. When I work with teachers designing lessons using the station rotation model, for example, some teachers struggle to understand how students can start at a station and complete an activity before they receive instruction. This assumption that students can’t engage in meaningful, self-directed work unless they are given information from the teacher or see a model in practice is deeply concerning.
In a podcast episode with James Anderson about his new book, Learnership, he points out that learning is not a product of teaching but rather a product of what students do. Yet, most classes I observe still rely on the teacher to do the lion’s share of the work. They are unpacking complex texts and topics. They are modeling strategies, processes, and skills. Students are watching, listening, and taking notes. They are positioned as passive receivers. However, they need more opportunities to actively engage in the meaning-making process.
What Is Meaning-Making?
Meaning-making is the process by which students interpret, understand, and make sense of the information, experiences, and the world around them. It’s a critical component of learning that moves beyond the acquisition of facts and information. It is the process of actively constructing knowledge by building on their prior understanding and experiences and engaging with content in a meaningful and relevant way.
Fostering meaning-making requires that educators cultivate learning environments and design learning experiences that encourage students to question, analyze, synthesize, and apply information in new contexts. There are many vehicles for meaning-making, some individual and some collaborative. Discussions, debates, problem-solving activities, and reflective practices are some of the ways that educators can help students connect new knowledge with their existing framework of understanding. The goal of promoting meaning-making in the classroom is to develop independent learners who can think critically, solve problems, and apply their knowledge.
In an Edutopia article, Judy Willis writes, “If students do not have opportunities to develop their higher order, cognitive skillsets, they won’t develop the reason, logic, creative problem solving, concept development, media literacy, and communication skills best suited for the daily complexities of life or the professional jobs of their future.” Willis points out that the prefrontal cortex, which is home to our critical thinking skills, changes and develops most rapidly from age 8 to 16. During that window, it is essential to stimulate that part of the brain to encourage the development of the executive function. Meaning-making activities can help strengthen this network, which is another reason they should be an essential part of every lesson.
Strategies for Promoting Independent Meaning-Making
Below are a few examples of meaning-making activities teachers can ask students to complete individually to construct understanding by deeply engaging with the content, encouraging critical thinking, and fostering the development of analytical skills.
Create An Analogy: Encourage students to make a comparison or create an analogy. An analogy, or comparison, challenges students to think about a thing’s qualities or characteristics to explain how it is similar to something else.
Compare and Contrast: Challenge students to compare and contrast two concepts, processes, issues, or phenomena to identify their similarities and differences. Students can capture their work on a Venn Diagram, in writing or drawings, or with a verbal explanation.
Draw a Concept Map or Flowchart: Ask students to surface their learning visually and make connections. Encourage them to begin by identifying the main concepts covered in a lesson, video, article, chapter of a text, or podcast, and create a concept map or flowchart to show how those concepts fit together. How are they connected or related to one another?
Strategies for Promoting Collaborative Meaning-Making
Below are a few examples of meaning-making activities teachers can ask groups of students to do collaboratively to construct knowledge, tapping into the collective intelligence of the learning community.
Discussion (Online or In-person): Students engage in an asynchronous or synchronous discussion about a text, topic, issue, phenomena, etc., answering questions, making connections, building upon each other’s ideas, and/or respectfully offering different perspectives or points of view.
Reciprocal Teaching: Students form groups of four. Each student assumes a specific role–summarizer, predictor, or questioner–to deepen their understanding of a text, video, podcast, or other multimedia resource. This collaborative approach empowers students to become active learners and helps them practice using cognitive skills to construct meaning.
Role-Playing and Simulations: Students explore historical events, scientific phenomena, or social situations from different perspectives, deepening their understanding through experiential learning.
Role of the Teacher in Facilitating Meaning-Making
Ultimately, the goal is to gradually release responsibility for these meaning-making activities to students. Before that can happen, teachers play a pivotal role in onboarding students to meaning-making strategies, guiding them through the process, and providing support in the early stages of this work.
Teachers should begin by explaining the value of a particular meaning-making strategy. That way, students understand why they are being asked to complete the activity. Next, teachers need to model the process, conducting a think-aloud and walking through the parts of the process so students can see it in action. Depending on the complexity of the strategy, teachers may want to guide students’ initial work with it or facilitate the work in small groups at the teacher-led station. Teachers may want to differentiate the process, making scaffolds (e.g., sentence stems, deconstructed examples) available to support students who might need it.
Once students understand the purpose of a strategy and have a clear sense of how to execute it individually or with their peers, these activities can be released to students to lead the meaning-making process. Ideally, these activities would work well in stations in a rotation or learning activities in a playlist or choice board.
Wrap Up
By dedicating time to nurture students’ confidence in engaging with meaning-making activities individually and in collaboration with peers, teachers can cultivate a learning environment where students are active agents empowered to lead their learning. This, in turn, fosters a sense of trust in students’ abilities to participate in meaningful learning experiences without constant teacher intervention, encouraging autonomy and a deeper level of engagement with the learning material.
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