Start with Questions: The Classroom as Design Studio

An exploration of how K–12 teachers support students’ self-directed learning.

What if classrooms were places where all learners have opportunities to work on projects and explore ideas that feel important to them? To have their voice and curiosity honored, and to have access to peers and teachers who support them on their learning journeys? In Start with Questions, Karen Brennan and Sarah Blum-Smith explore how K–12 teachers are making this possible by supporting students’ self-directed learning—an approach to learning that enables students to find joy and meaning in what they are doing, enhancing their learning in the moment and creating excitement for future learning.

Based on a year-long study with 25 teachers in elementary, middle, and high school computing classrooms across the United States, the book showcases teaching that centers students’ ideas for what and how they learn. The book shares stories of practice drawn from teacher interviews, classroom observations, and reflective journals. Each story is accompanied by theory from educators, researchers, and philosophers—such as Eleanor Duckworth, Paulo Freire, bell hooks, and Donald Schön—to illuminate the powerful principles underlying teachers’ support of self-directed learning in the classroom. Collectively, the stories and theory offer a vision of how beautiful learning happens when teachers start with questions and create the conditions for learners to take themselves and their ideas seriously.