Over the past few years, I have developed an approach called ‘open source learning.’ The concept, founded in pragmatism and the educational philosophies of John Dewey, has five main elements:

• Lack of hierarchy in the classroom
• Working in groups
• Working in networks
• Knowledge creation in real time
• Knowledge creation for the common good.

I gave a keynote speech on this idea in 2011 at the “Putting Schools to Work” conference at the great Island School in Eleuthra, Bahamas. By adopting this approach, which I first tested in 2005 in a class on building the climate movement, students come to understand that they have the power to be changemakers.