LEVANTE: the Learning Variability Network Exchange

Children spend much of their time learning in social groups such as in daycare settings, classrooms, and formal or informal out-of-school learning experiences. Each child brings their own unique needs and experiences to these groups, which then influence how they learn and participate. How can education systems be designed so that instruction meets the needs of heterogeneous groups of children? How can group instruction in social environments, like classrooms, both cater to the needs of individual students and take advantage of learning variability for improved learning for all?

Children encounter many learning contexts throughout their day – home, math class, playground – and they are expected to navigate successfully within each context. Multiplying the number of contexts over years and decades, children need to be equipped with the ability to adapt to and shape the different contexts surrounding them. This adaptive flexibility becomes therefore instrumental to their long-term success. What are the skills, behaviors, knowledge, and characteristics that prepare children to learn in future contexts? How might environments be described so that we may better understand how to facilitate children’s successful adaptation within and across them? How can and should the child’s present learning benefit their future learning?