impetus for learning and can add complexity to the CTL experience. Team collaboration and group learning activities respect students’ diverse
histories, broaden perspectives, and build inter-personal skills.
d.
Supporting self-regulated learning. Ultimately, students must become
lifelong learners. Lifelong learners are able to seek out, analyze, and use information with little to no supervision. To do so, students must become
more aware how they process information, employ problem-solving strategies, and use background knowledge. CTL experiences should allow
for trial and error; provide time and structure for reflection; and provide adequate support to assist students to move from dependent to
independent learning.
e. Using interdependent learning groups. Students will be influenced by
and will contribute to the knowledge and beliefs of others. Learning groups, or learning communities, are established in workplaces and
schools in an effort to share knowledge, focus on goals, and allow all to teach and learn from each other. When learning communities are
established in schools, educators act as coaches, facilitators, and mentors. f.
Employing authentic assessment. CTL is intended to build knowledge
and skills in meaningful ways by engaging students in real life, or authentic contexts. Assessment of learning should align with the
methods and purposes of instruction. Authentic assessments show among other things that learning has occurred; are blended into the
teachinglearning process; and provide students with opportunities and direction for improvement. Authentic assessment is used to monitor
student progress and inform teaching practices.
Curricula and instruction based on contextual learning strategies
should be structured to encourage five essential forms of learning:
RELATING: Learning in the context of life experience, or relating, is the kind of contextual
learning that typically occurs with very young children. With adult learners, however, providing this meaningful context for learning becomes more
difficult. The curriculum that attempts to place learning in the context of life experiences must, first, call the student’s attention to everyday sights, events,
and conditions. It must then relate those everyday situations to new information to be absorbed or a problem to be solved.
EXPERIENCING: Experiencing
—learning in the context of exploration, discovery, and invention
—is the heart of contextual learning. However motivated or tuned-in students may become as a result of other instructional strategies such as video,
narrative, or text-based activities, these remain relatively passive forms of learning. And learning appears to take far more quickly when students are
able to manipulate equipment and materials and to do other forms of active research.
APPLYING: Applying concepts and information in a useful context often projects students
into an imagined future a possible career or into an unfamiliar location a workplace. This happens most commonly through text, video, labs, and
activities and these contextual learning experiences are often followed up with firsthand experiences such as plant tours, mentoring arrangements, and
internships. COOPERATING:
Cooperating —learning in the context of sharing, responding, and
communicating with other learners —is a primary instructional strategy in
contextual teaching. The experience of cooperating not only helps the majority of students learn the material, it also is consistent with the real-world
focus of contextual teaching. Employers espouse that employees who can
