Learning in Depth

Each child is given a particular topic to learn about through her or his whole school career, in addition to the usual curriculum, and builds a personal portfolio on the topic.

Principal Investigator: Dr. Kieran Egan

What's Proposed

To the surprise of many, children usually take to the program with great enthusiasm, and within a few months, LiD begins to transform their experience as learners. The program usually takes about an hour a week, with the students working outside school time increasingly.

How This Project is Carried Out

The website provides:

  • Planning frameworks for teachers wanting to apply IERG ideas
  • Many examples in all curriculum areas for download and use
  • Teacher tips for using the ideas in simple ways in daily teaching
  • An M.Ed. program for teachers who want to study this work and develop their skills in these directions
  • A list of workshops in many countries, and conferences held at regular intervals in Canada and abroad.

How This Project is Put into Action

Corbett Charter School in Oregon, U.S., is running all of the programs accessible from the main IERG website.

Corbett Charter School is ranked Number 3 in the U.S. on The Washington Post's Challenge Index, leading all schools in 49 states. The two top-ranked schools share a single campus in Dallas, Texas. One is an engineering magnet, the other a school for talented and gifted. Corbett is a community school.

In addition, IERG ideas and practices and the Learning in Depth (LiD) program can be found in schools in many countries. LiD has developed from an idea four years ago to implementation in hundreds of schools and a dozen countries today.

Where to Learn More