Helical Learning Strategy

What do students need to know for an unpredictable future? How should they learn these skills and content? What type of learning environment will develop future leaders?

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind
of thinking we used when we created them.”
– Albert Einstein

The thinking process and perspectives of two generations:

Analog Generation	Digital Generation
Step 1,2,3 Beginning, Middle, End Two-Dimension Local Written Word Linear Content Focus	Step 5, 2, 7 Middle, End, Beginning Three-Dimensional Global Multimedia Interactive, Connective Media Focus

Constructivism

Constructivism, the study of the construction of learning, is about how we all make sense of information and the world.   In a Constructivist classroom, students are active formulators of their knowledge. They learn-by-doing: How to ask questions and formulate hypotheses; connect what they know with new information and distill concepts and theories from data; and generate new and relevant meanings. Further, in this type of classroom, students learn communications,  collaboration, and social-emotional skills which are essential ingredients to succeed in their future careers.

Helical Learning Strategy

Developed by Gigi Carlson, the Helical Learning Strategy is a process akin to inventive learning blocks. It engages students in a systematic and progressive series of activities that build on each other. Starting with simple and fun lessons to build interest and introduce the topic, the methodology provides students with hands-on activities to expand, apply, and master subject matter.

Learners progress to increasingly complex and imaginative tasks leading to an inventive project that addresses a community and/or world problem. At the end of every module, students review the lesson and collectively underscore the meanings behind their experiences and discoveries. At the end of a module, with their teacher, students learn to distill lessons and build theories about the topic.

Designed to address fundamental concerns of what students need to succeed in their future careers in a competitive, dynamic and unpredictable global economy, this proactive learning environment nurtures young learners’ abilities to achieve higher levels of comprehension through reasoning, mastery, and application of subject matter. This they accomplish with hands-on projects predicated on the use of information in analytical and creative applications.

Furthermore, the helical learning strategy guides students in transforming knowledge into real-world projects. Theoretical concepts in the form of hypotheses or social theories as well as creative visions, are grounded in the experience of innovation and creation.

The learning helix is the spine of an application of the Constructivist pedagogy where students learn by analyzing patterns, failures, and successes, concepts, and possibilities. These then become the foundations from which they learn to create their own theories of fundamental concepts in science, social studies, language arts, and mathematics. By the time the teacher presents for example a scientific law, a social or economic concept, a mathematical algorithm, or a literary style, students will have had the experience, knowledge, and skills to engage in critical conversations about the theory, genre, and/or creative process.

The Helical Learning strategy also makes possible a multi-modality curricular design that addresses different learning styles. Inspired by Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences, the multi-sensory and integrated arts activities allow all types of learners to actively participate in subject matter exploration, application, and mastery through a progression of learning activities.

Following is an example of the Helical Learning strategy as applied to a topic in science:

Scaffolding Level	Content	Activity	Output
Play	buoyancy	Paper boat	Graph:  Which boat stayed afloat the longest? Why?
Explore	Buoyancy expanded	Playdoh with pennies	Graph:  Which boat stayed afloat longest and number of pennies on the boat/s
Explore (continued)	Buoyancy & World War II technology	Build battleship and try the pennies	Draw battleship with written technical explanations demonstrating buoyancy and technology
Connect	Buoyancy and the Technology of the Hull of the ship	Use playdoh and create different types of hulls	Draw hulls and a graph to determine hull designs that float the longest
Imagine	Integrate data about buoyancy with engineering design	Students will create their own ship design. The ship should float.	Technical drawing with text explanations of a technically well-designed ship
Remember	Introduce and connect law of and  Archimedes’ theory on Buoyancy with the results of the experiments	Test the ship	Discuss results  Distill Concepts Conclusions for the day New Questions

The Academic schedule

Class schedules support the school’s academic goal of enabling students to achieve depth and mastery of subject matter. Two to three hour periods of multiple activities are dedicated each day to a subject. Following is a typical day/week schedule at Synapse Institute. It is noted however, that this schedule is not rigid and will change according to the students’ responses to the activities and subject matter. Also, the schedules of the afternoon creative communications classes will vary for each class.

Time	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
9-9:20	Yoga/Tai-Chi	Yoga/Tai-Chi	Yoga/Tai-Chi	Yoga/Tai-Chi	Yoga/Tai-Chi
9:20-9:30	Humor Time	Humor Time	Humor Time	Humor Time	Humor Time
9:30-10:30	Play/Explore  Social Studies	Play/Explore  Science	Play/Explore  Mathematics	Play/Explore  Language Arts	Self-Science
10:30-10:45	Snack & Socials	Snack & Socials	Snack & Socials	Snack & Socials	Snack & Socials
10:45-12:00	Connect/Imagine/  Remember Social Studies	Connect/Imagine/  Remember Science	Connect/Imagine/  Remember Mathematics	Connect/Imagine/  Remember Language Arts	Special Project
12:00-12:30	Lunch & Socials	Lunch & Socials	Lunch & Socials	Lunch & Socials	Teacher Planning (no classes)
12:30-12:45	Free Time	Free Time	Free Time	Free Time
12:45-1:30	P.E./Park	P.E./Park	P.E./Park	P.E./Park
1:30-2:15	Visual Arts	Drama	Music	Digital Media/  Academic Skills
2:15-2:45	Keyboarding/  Academic Skills	Keyboarding/  Academic Skills	Keyboarding/  Academic Skills	Keyboarding/  Academic Skills
2:45-3:00	Debriefing	Debriefing	Debriefing	Debriefing

Fridays are half-days, giving teachers time to participate in weekly school in-service training activities. These curriculum strategy meetings will ensure that teachers are given the support and guidance by the administration and their peers, to write and prepare excellent learning activities for their students.

Monthly Concept Themes, Higher-order Thinking, and Portfolio Days

Each of the classes has integrated learning activities that are anchored to monthly concept themes. There are nine themes in each school year. By defining the learning strands in the form of themes, students are able to value what they learn in real-world and integrated contexts. For example, in the lower grades, while they learn how to read time, they also learn how time affects one’s everyday routines and how to maximize time. Then they expand their knowledge of time as a way to define historical periods and how civilizations differed at various stages, such as the tribal age, feudal age, industrial age, and the information age. In this way, the concept of B.C. and A.D. is explained in both social studies as historical concepts and math subjects, where they learn about the number line, positive, and negative numbers. Then in their science class, students explore simple to complex machines, relative to the periods that these were invented. They learn about the lives of the inventors in language arts and explore the elements of biographical writing as applied to a person’s lifetime.

Examples of the concept themes include:

• Timeline, Technology, and Human Civilization
• The Meaning and Impact of Opposites
• Entrepreneurship: Finding and Creating Opportunities
• Shape, Space, Measurement, and Design

At the end of each theme, students present their month’s works to their parents and guardians.

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Gigi Carlson is the Director of Synapse Institute and author of the book Digital Media in the Classroom where she introduced the Helical Learning strategy.