The Five Foundations turn everyday lessons into launchpads for self-directed growth. Learn how planning, tracking, resourcefulness, collaboration, and flexible mastery make agency teachable—and measurable.

I’ve found that a common reaction to the phrase “self-directed”  involves the following presupposition: letting students fend for...

Instead of marching through a rigid syllabus, learners help decide what they want to achieve, how they’ll get there, and how they’ll prove they’ve arrived–even if it involves obtaining an accredited school diploma. The payoff is a classroom learning environment buzzing with curiosity instead of compliance, where feedback feels less like a scoreboard and more like mile-markers on a long-distance walk students actually care about.

Traditional schooling models often aim to develop students who are independent thinkers, self-motivated learners, and collaborative problem-solvers. However, the very teacher-led practices that shape these environments often hinder students from fully realizing these goals. Essentially, traditional teacher-led approaches may inadvertently stifle the very qualities they are trying to foster.

Schools, as microcosms of society, have the potential to serve as breeding grounds for these changes, where future generations can learn to embrace interdependence, collaboration, and social responsibility—values that will ultimately lead to a more just, inclusive, and sustainable society.

In these three sections, we will explore how school leaders can integrate MI principles into their leadership practices, understanding Motivational Interviewing and its principles with specific elements of culture and core values according to the Mullen Bioecological Model for Who We Are and How We Learn.

Despite having talented educators and dedicated school leaders, many districts—especially large urban areas like Los Angeles—still overlook one of the most effective solutions to these persistent problems: the Instructional Coach.

From Compliance to Socioemotional Growth: Rethinking Classroom Management

Education is undergoing significant changes that are acknowledging a difference between "schooling" and "learning." Schooling  refers to...

Traditional behaviorist practices in classroom management often serve as a philosophical basis that undermines the larger goal of...

A growing number of schools are embracing innovative approaches that prioritize student autonomy, personalized learning, and holistic...

What is Self-Directed Schooling? Self-Directed Schooling represents an educational approach that integrates metacognitive constructivism,...

The phrase, Self-Directed Schooling, represents a paradigm shift in education where learners are empowered to take ownership of learning.

In today's educational landscape, the way we assess student learning is evolving.

The risk of shifting our teaching practices from pedagogical to heutagogical is in our own reluctance as educators to relinquish control...

At the end of my last post, Elements of Culture, I wrote how Culture and Values overlap but are still distinct layers with distinct...

How would I describe the culture of a self-directed schooling environment? When I think about “culture”, I often imagine the sound of...

What I am proposing in this article is a framework that takes a philosophy for Self-Directed Learning and places it within the structure...

This article looks at the impact of a self-directed learning philosophy on elements of a school's culture.

Traditionally, students learned according to a schedule which they themselves were not responsible for planning or executing.