Meaningful Instruction: Fostering Critical Thinking, Advocacy, and Change in the Classroom

Imagine teaching a lesson and seeing a student’s hand go up. You call on them, and they ask, “When are we ever going to use this?” 

You quickly tie the content to specific career examples. The student nods, showing initial understanding. However, you want your instruction to ignite genuine curiosity and help students connect deeply with the content. You ponder how you can move your students from “When will I ever use this?” to “I can use this to better myself and my community!” 

You review your curriculum, and although it is aligned with ​​standards, it may not be set up for this kind of work. You know you need to make space in the curriculum to create classroom experiences where students connect their learning to the real world and use their knowledge to make change. You want to make your instruction meaningful for your students.

At UnboundEd, we empower educators to meet the needs of every single student through grade-level, engaging, affirming, and meaningful — GLEAM® — instruction.

Meaningful instruction requires creating classroom experiences where students:

• Understand and critique long-standing norms
• Examine their community’s social position
• Foster a sense of advocacy and change

Through meaningful instruction, students can see the humanity in the content they learn and use their learning to bring about positive change in the world. Meaningful instruction goes beyond representing your student population with fun topics. It inspires students to take action and apply their knowledge in transformative ways.

So, what does it look like to create meaningful classroom experiences for your students? Let’s analyze each component of meaningful instruction.

Examine Their Community’s Social Position

When students can examine their community’s social position, they understand what their community values by examining how its members allocate their time, money, and additional resources to different issues and topics. Connecting the content you teach to your students’ community bridges the gap between their school knowledge and life. Students need opportunities to use the content they learn to understand better and critique their community’s social position and context, looking for root causes for why things are the way they are.

What could this look like in the classroom?

Picture a sixth-grade math class in San Francisco whose focus standard is unit rate. The classroom teacher knows their students, their lived experiences, and what affects their community, so they connect the learning to the lack of affordable housing in the area. Students examine the state’s Accountability Report from 2023 and the proposed solution of producing 82,000 new homes by 2031. The teacher instructs students not only to find out how many homes need to be built per year for the state to reach its goal (unit rate) but also to examine the impact of producing more homes on their community and whether the new homes are, in fact, affordable. Knowing the intersection of your content, your students, and the issues impacting their community can make your instruction meaningful for students.

Foster a Sense of Advocacy and Change

By thinking critically about cultural norms and examining their community’s role, students can make a difference by elevating the positive contributions that have already been made or advocating for change within their community.

What could this look like in the classroom?

What if students could use their knowledge not just to make sense of the world but to actually impact it? Visualize a third-grade classroom where students are learning about habitats. By examining their community, students recognize that the groundskeepers consistently mow the fields around the school, removing a food source for the animals in the area. Students use their knowledge of the food chain and research about protecting the environment to write letters to the school’s administration advocating for no-mow zones to protect the living things around the school. Here, the teacher gives the learning a context and vehicle where students apply their learning in an impactful way.

Moving Forward With Purpose

The responsibility of crafting meaningful instructional experiences does not have to be a daunting task. It is also vital in preparing students for life. At UnboundEd, we encourage teachers to start at the unit planning level, in collaboration with their peers, looking for opportunities to infuse meaningful instructional experiences into their curriculum. To do so, educators must collectively:

• Empower your students to critique their school community and the world around them. 
• Believe student opinions hold value.
• Enact policies and systems to support teacher collaboration to ground learning in meaningful contexts.
• Interrogate your curriculum and look for opportunities to adapt it to meet your students’ needs.

Whether you lead a classroom or a school system, you’re journeying toward better, more equitable learning for your students. At UnboundEd, we’re here to partner with you every step of the way, offering proven tools and programs tailored to your needs.

Be sure to check out the blogs below to learn more about the other elements of GLEAM instruction.