A Beautiful Design: Focusing on 3 Primary Learning Domains

For the next generation of learners to succeed and thrive, their learning experiences must facilitate their development in three primary domains: knowledge, skills, and dispositions.

The below chart includes our description of each of these domains and a set of examples adapted from the work of the Council of Chief State School Officers.

There is evidence that this triad of domains can be mutually reinforcing. Deep engagement with disciplinary knowledge builds and develops learners’ skills—such as communication, collaboration, creativity, problem-solving, metacognition, and critical thinking—and dispositions—such as resilience, curiosity, resourcefulness, persistence, and adaptability. Strong skills and dispositions can then allow learners to broaden and deepen their knowledge, driven by their own interests and motivations, as well as by agreed standards for competency in these domains.