Learning in Depth Resource materials

Read more about the Learning in Depth project on the LiD website.

If you would like a copy please email ierg-ed@sfu.ca. The cost is $45, (which is rather less than the cost of production and mailing.)  

Our main purpose in putting this resource pack together is to help those who will be involved in implementing the program. We anticipate it will be used mainly by administrators and teachers. One likely use of these resources will be to convey information about the program to those who are thus far unfamiliar with it. So we have included a PowerPoint presentation about the program, and single page handouts that give the most basic information about it. Mostly, however, we have in mind the teacher faced with the task of supervising the development of students’ portfolios, so the most substantial documents address practical matters of keeping students imaginatively engaged with their developing portfolios.

List of Contents

0. One copy of these introductory notes

1. LiD PowerPoint presentation

In case you would like to introduce LiD to some group, we have included a PowerPoint presentation you can use. These presentation formats are very much a matter of personal style, and we give you permission to change this presentation to fit your own preferred manner of describing the program. You should not, of course, try to use this if you are not already familiar with the program. You should, at the very least, have read all the materials on this DVD first, and you should be familiar with the LiD websites and their contents.

2. The “Brief Guide to Learning in Depth,” for distribution 

We have included on the accompanying DVD a copy of the Brief Guide, and we have also included a printed version in this Resource pack. You may print off as many copies of the Guide as you wish, but we have found that some people prefer copies of the professionally printed version. If that is the case for you, the LiD office can send you as many copies as you wish for the cost of printing and mailing. You can acquire them by writing to the LiD address given at the end of these notes. 

3. Criteria for the selection of topics

Not any topic will carry the student through a dozen years of inquiry and study. Some topics may be too narrow, or lack diversity, or have little connection with human life, or any of a range of restricting reasons. These criteria were developed after exploring what was required to satisfy students’ changing interests over their school careers. You may be able to add to this list of criteria, and if so, we’d like to hear from you—see the “Contact us” page at the end.

4. A list of appropriate LiD topics

Some time has been spent in coming up with the 120 topics on the list. There is no reason at all that you shouldn’t add to this list or substitute your preferred topics. But, if you do choose to do that, try to make sure that your new topics meet the set of criteria that will help you choose suitable topics. We have no doubt that we could have expanded this list to thousands, but thought there are some advantages to having a somewhat restricted set of topics. For one thing, it would mean that while nearly all students in any grade level in a school could have a different topic, there would likely be older and younger students who will have the same topic, and they may be able to work together on some occasions.

5. A one-page outline of the program, for distribution 

We have included this in case you might want to pass along to someone a very brief outline of the program. Maybe it is too brief for most purposes, but at least it gives an account of what LiD is and aims to achieve. For someone wanting more information, the Brief Guide might be suitable. Alternatively, the following item might do the trick.

6. An article about the program, for distribution

This article gives an outline of the program, its aims, and discusses some of its potential problems. It is designed as an introductory piece, and may be useful for some people. The article tries to lay out some of the main reasons it might be beneficial to a school to take on the program.

7. LiD Models for Teachers: 7.1. Apples; 7.2. Money.

The Models for Teachers provide examples of how the LiD project might be begun, giving guidance to teachers who might want to draw on it how they can go about engaging the student in beginning to build the portfolio. Because elementary students can be expected to need more guidance, the model for Grade One is tied more closely to the school curriculum than models for other grades. The model shows the wide variety of activities the students could undertake, with no more knowledge or skills than they would normally be developing within the regular curriculum.

8. Frequently asked questions

This is simply a set of the commonest questions and objections to the program that we hear, and very straightforward responses to each of them. It has a limited value, but it is sometimes useful to respond to what some people think are absolutely knock-down objections to the program (such as: “Students will get bored with a single topic,” etc.). These largely repeat a section in the Brief Guide.

9. “Building the portfolio”

This is the first of the fairly substantial documents that discuss in some detail the main practical problems facing a teacher or administrator when beginning to implement LiD. It takes up questions like: What will these portfolios look like? Where will students keep them? What will be the teacher’s role exactly, and what will happen as students move from teacher to teacher? How different can portfolios be? What are student presentations going to be like, and what is their purpose? The document tries to give a helpful picture of how one might expect the process of building a portfolio to get underway successfully.

10. “Some operating principles”

This document discusses how we can get the five year old, or the seven year old, sufficiently interested in bees or apples to get the project off the ground. What will the students do for the first year or so?—especially if they can’t read. It also discusses other vulnerable points, such as the major transitions that commonly take place in students’ interests at around age eight—some time after fantasy worlds have evaporated, tooth-fairies and Santa Clause are long discarded with the dolls of childhood, and reality-based hobbies and collections begin. The other significant transition is at about age fifteen, when the hobbies and collections tend to be left behind in their turn and are replaced by a greater sense of independence, more theoretical concerns, and burgeoning social agency.

Building a portfolio over twelve years is going to involve a fair amount of hard work. What we want to do in this document is show how it is possible to draw on sources of energy in students to engage them with this work and enable them to see it as worthwhile. The document focuses attention on what students find spontaneously engaging at different ages and then try to infer from their engagement more general principles that can be applied when teaching. Our purpose here is not to give descriptions of the kind of teaching approaches that can be found in many good books and websites. Rather we focus on approaches that may seem a little unusual at first, but should be particularly helpful in engaging students’ interest in their LiD topics. 

11. A brief video discussion of the LiD program

This 8 minute discussion took place between three members of the LiD team. It introduces some of the main principles of LiD and raises some prominent objections to the program, along with answers. Tannis Calder, Kieran Egan, and Don McLeod are the discussants.

12. A copy of the LiD logo, in case it might be useful

13. Copies of LiD Newsletters

The news grows older day by day, but you might find something in these earlier news items about LiD of some casual interest.