Student-designed learning encourages experiences and develops a greater sense of achievement. Students who are encouraged to design their own solutions to problems learn to be creative, critical, reflective, and productive. Student designed learning is reality based. Students are given broad, general assignments. As individuals, alone or in collaboration with others, objectives are identified, and a range of tools is selected in order to get the job done.
Students know what they are trying to accomplish, and the final project demonstrates what they know.
Students are motivated to learn and demonstrate a great need and desire to connect curriculum to real life. Teaching students how to understand and apply course content in situations that both integrate academic disciplines and connect school to what matters to students leads to better and long-term learning. This is a student focused, student designed program. Students are encouraged to develop solutions to problems that affect their lives and through the process of developing these solutions, must develop goals, objectives, select tools and set timelines.