Almost every exciting thing that occurs in school is related to instruction, by which we mean how students come to learn the curriculum that has been designed for them to learn.

Students eagerly listening to their teacher read a picture book; students sifting through soil to investigate its properties; students calculating decimals from fraction and solving word problems: these are students actively learning, which occurs when instruction is carefully designed to capitalize on students’ natural curiosity at all ages of the educational continuum. Indeed, much good instruction is student-centered, considering the differentiated strengths and goal areas of each student at any given point in time.

In our twenty-first-century world, logical shifts in instruction utilize technology advantageously to support students’ active learning; this occurs across all grades and subject areas, from music and art to world language development.