There are multiple definitions of ‘deeper learning’ floating around out there. The widely-adopted list from the Hewlett Foundation (2013) postulated that deeper learning occurs when students master six key competencies:

1. Master core academic content. Students develop and draw from a baseline understanding of knowledge in an academic discipline and are able to transfer knowledge to other situations.
2. Think critically and solve complex problems. Students apply tools and techniques gleaned from core subjects to formulate and solve problems. These tools include data analysis, statistical reasoning, and scientific inquiry as well as creativity, nonlinear thinking, and persistence.
3. Work collaboratively. Students cooperate to identify and create solutions to academic, social, vocational, and personal challenges.
4. Communicate effectively. Students clearly organize their data, findings, and thoughts.
5. Learn how to learn. Students monitor and direct their own learning.
6. Develop academic mindsets. Students develop positive attitudes and beliefs about themselves as learners that increase their academic perseverance and prompt them to engage in productive academic behaviors. Students are committed to seeing work through to completion, meeting their goals, and doing quality work, and thus search for solutions to overcome obstacles.

I am not sure that the Hewlett definition goes far enough. I always have my antennae up, recognizing what Richard Elmore (2006) called ‘the resilience of teacher culture’:

This culture [in American schools] has been defeating people who try to change it for decades. . . . If you ask people to do high level work in classrooms in the current culture, they will do low-level work and call it high-level work.

Schools have a long history of announcing that we are now doing that new thing! and yet… school still feels mostly the same, particularly in core courses. We simply absorb the innovation like an amoeba, weakened into whatever form can be easily ingested without much concern, and then move on with little or no disruption to current internal practice. As I look over the Hewlett list, I can see many schools saying, “Yeah, we already do that.” Put another way, as we said in Leadership for Deeper Learning (2021):

the standardized model of education has deep roots and sharp claws, which help it fend off its challengers. . . . [t]hrough both active opposition to change and sheer historical inertia. (pp. 1-2)

Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine (2019) articulated their own vision of deeper learning, one that

emerges at the intersection of three virtues: mastery, identity, and creativity. . . . students [have] opportunities to develop knowledge and skill (mastery), they [come] to see their core selves as vitally connected to what they [are] learning and doing (identity), and they [have] opportunities to enact their learning by producing something rather than simply receiving knowledge (creativity). (p. 6)

I like their definition a lot better! Jal and Sarah recognize that mastery goes beyond just academic content, lean hard into student identity and ownership, and stress that making something is more impactful than simply reading, listening, and regurgitating.

One of the best definitions of powerful learning that I’ve ever encountered comes from Seymour Sarason, who said simply that “productive learning . . . engenders and reinforces wanting to learn more” (p. x). Many of our current instructional practices leave students wanting more, but not in that way!

In my own interactions with schools and educators, I have been trying to articulate deeper learning in terms of what we probably will observe when we visit:

• hands-on, active, holistic experiential learning by students;
• high levels of student agency, voice, choice, and ownership;
• deep, robust student creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration;
• student acquisition of ‘durable skills’ beyond low-level factual and procedural content;
• students who are engaged in authentic, interdisciplinary, real-world work and problem-solving;
• students who are making positive impacts in local or global contexts;
• place-based, community-engaged partnerships; 
• extensive utilization of performance assessment models; and/or
• creative and empowering student use of digital tools, learning technologies, and online platforms.

Each of these elements could be dissected in more detail but, if you ever get to visit a present-day ‘deeper learning school,’ you likely will see many / most of these. I am sure that this list is incomplete, but it is my current go-to operational definition. You will see a strong emphasis in my definition on students doing things that feel meaningful and relevant and actually matter. What would you add or change? How are you defining ‘deeper learning?’