Ben Nelson: “We designed the curriculum, the pedagogy, the technology, the global orientation… to promote students' intellectual, social and emotional well-being, with only a single overarching goal in mind: the success of our students. Ultimately, this is the only metric that matters.”

Fully active learning works because it mirrors how understanding actually develops — through wrestling with ideas, making mistakes, getting feedback, and trying again. Minerva didn’t invent this. Cognitive science confirmed it. Minerva built a school around the science of learning. More on this in future posts.

I’ve outlined the basic components of each of the four core competencies. These are further broken down into 80+ “habits of mind” across subjects. The goal isn’t to know things. It’s to become someone who can figure things out. The tight integration of skills with content is key. More on this in future posts.

Most schools innovate by adding technology onto old pedagogy. Minerva went with first principles thinking and did the opposite: they rebuilt the pedagogy first, then designed technology to serve it. I’ll write more about how they did this when we start using the platform from next April.

Effective interaction, the fourth core competency, is how you negotiate, mediate, and persuade. Also knowing when and when not to lead. The competency most schools leave entirely to chance — assuming students will somehow absorb it, is integrated tightly throughout the entire Minerva curriculum.

The third Minerva core competency is effective communication. Learning to think and write clearly or speak confidently — understanding one’s audience, structuring one’s argument, and adapting one’s message to context. Using nonverbal communication also plays a role in how a message is received.

Minerva students scored in the 99th percentile on critical thinking tests after just 8 months — outperforming seniors at other institutions. What were they doing differently? No lectures. Fully active learning. Every class, every day. Next post we answer the question: What is fully active learning?