Creating the Environment for Learning
- 1. Creating the Environment for Learning A report by Stephen James Duran
- 2. A learning environment is more than just a classroom—it’s a space in which students feel safe and supported in their pursuit of knowledge, as well as inspired by their surroundings. What is a learning environment? Instructors can also influence a learning environment by the way they teach and the atmosphere they create in the classroom. They can help influence student learning by encouraging student engagement, providing positive and constructive feedback that supports exploration, community among peers, and diversity.
- 3. According to: Hattie (2009) One of the most important influences on student achievement is the relationship between the teacher and students. Goodwin (2011) describes teachers who create a conducive environment for learning as warm and empathetic and establish a sense of community within the classroom where they respect students and students respect them and one another. Essential in creating a favorable learning atmosphere is a growth mindset where teachers' words and actions make it clear that student achievement depends on hard work and effort and is not cast in stone by past performance.
- 4. Dean et. al. (2012) This motivates students to work harder. As students work harder, their feeling of self-efficacy increases. The first three instructional strategies when applied will lead to a positive learning environment. They are: 1) setting objectives and providing feedback, 2) reinforcing effort and providing recognition and 3) cooperative learning.
- 5. Setting Objectives There are four recommendations for setting objectives in the classroom: • Set learning objectives that are specific but not restrictive. • Communicate the learning objectives to students and parents. • Connect the learning objectives to previous and future learning. ° Engage students in setting personal learning objectives. Make them own the learning objectives. This makes them self-directed learners (Dean, et al, 2012).
- 6. • Provide feedback to make students understand what was correct and what was incorrect and to make clear what students need to do next. • Provide feedback in time to meet students' needs. • Feedback should be criterion- referenced. Feedback should make students see their performance in relation to the expected outcome or the learning target and not in relation to the classmates' performance. Providing Feedback
- 7. • Engage students in the feedback process (Dean, et al, 2012). This way, they are made to reflect on their own performance and exchange feedback with peers. This can help them become lifelong learners.
- 8. Reinforcing Effort What can reinforce student effort? Teach student that success is within their control because it comes as a result of their effort not because of other people or of luck. “There is only one formula for success and that is hard work.”
- 9. Providing Recognition • Promote a mastery-goal orientation. Teachers should recognize effort in relation to learning outcomes not to other students' performance. In other words, the emphasis is on criterion-referenced and not on norm-referenced assessment. • Provide praise that is specific and aligned with expected performance and behaviors. Great and very good are quite general compared to "Congratulations, you struggled with using a microscope properly, but you asked questions when you didn't understand, and now your efforts are paying off:" Teachers must be generous with genuine praise.
- 10. Cooperative Learning Teachers are strongly encouraged to use cooperative learning to lay the foundation for students' success' in a world that depends on collaboration and cooperation. In the layers of a complex world, the students of today need to possess not only intellectual capabilities but also the ability to function effectively in an environment that requires working with others to accomplish a variety of tasks, claims Thomas Friedman (2006), the author of the The World Is Flat. Learning atmosphere is more favorable when students work together rather than compete and work against one another. For an effective cooperative learning, keep group size reasonably small.
- 11. Elements of the Cooperative Learning Model
- 12. ELEMENT PURPOSE INSTRUCTIONAL IMPLICATION Positive Interdependence To ensure that success by an individual promotes success among other group members. Establishes a cooperative goal structure and equally distribute resources; helps students develop a sense that they "sink or swim" together. Face-to-Face Promotive Interaction To encourage and activate individuals' efforts to achieve and help one another learn. Encourages discussion among group members and teach students about the importance of effort and how to provide others with recognition for their effort. Individual and Group Accountability To ensure that all members contribute to achievement of the goal and learn as individuals. Establishes an optimal group size and include individual assessments; helps students understand that each person needs to contribute to the success of the group. Interpersonal and Small-Group Skills To ensure that all members clearly understand effective group skills. Provide initial and ongoing instruction on effective group skills such as communication, decision making, conflict resolution, leadership and trust. Group Processing To promote group and individual reflection for maintenance of group effectiveness and success. Establishes dedicated time for group reflection by providing structures such as specific questions, learning logs, or sentence stems that focus on how well the learner is functioning and how to function even better.
- 13. Thank you!