Self Directed Learning

Delve and Drive

When Google launched its ‘20% Project’, it got a huge amount of publicity. It is a company wide initiative where all Google employees are allocated twenty-percent of their work time to pursue personal projects. The objective of the program is to inspire innovation in participating employees and ultimately increase company potential.

At Liberty Woodland School we highly value self-direction as motivation for learning. We believe curiosity is the primary drive that motivates the acquisition of information. Playfulness is the primary drive that motivates skill learning. When we provide young people with opportunities to delve deeply into their individual passions, we allow them to find joy in learning and discover what interests them. Through delve and drive projects students are self-motivated to acquire information and learn skills in the pursuit of their self-directed goals.

Through delve and drive projects, students create their own projects, derived from a question they’d like to answer, something they have always wanted to learn more about, something they think may benefit their community and much more. Students are supported and scaffolded by a mentor through the process of preparing for, working through, achievements and reflections within their delve and drive project.

We have been fortunate to have representatives from Google come to LWS to listen to our students' final presentation in which they reflect on their journey through their delve and drive project.