Return-Path: <nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id h8FE8WT25861; Mon, 15 Sep 2003 10:08:32 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 10:08:32 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <8f.31dea8d6.2c972146@aol.com> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: MWPotts2001@aol.com To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-4EFF:2541] learning environments X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Mailer: AOL 5.0 for Mac sub 39 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Status: O Content-Length: 3207 Lines: 58 Colleagues, How important is the classroom environment as an element that facilitates learning? Below are two descriptions. How closely do they match the recommendations for the Equipped for the Future learning environment? How closely do they match your own definition/descriptions of environments that maximize learning? >From The PEN Weekly Newsblast, September 12, 2003 The Creative Classroom—Mental Environments …Award-winning teachers say a stimulating visual environment is just part of the picture. Much more important, say teachers honored for their creative teaching, is a classroom's mental environment -- a climate where students and teachers are free to study and explore important curriculum topics with rigor but without restraint. In creative classrooms, teachers are mindful of state and local standards, but they approach required topics with a playful enthusiasm that inspires students to learn. They prompt students to think deeply, pose questions, and pursue "big ideas" from many perspectives. And they allow students to show their understanding of essential curriculum concepts in their own ways. "When you walk into a creative classroom, you can feel the electricity of the learning," says Linda Darus Clark, asocial studies teacher. According to Susan Black, a classroom's atmosphere can be a clue to its creativity. Also, teachers in creative classrooms understand that students need to have their own repertoire of knowledge and skills to pursue high-level inquiries and problem-solving. They foster thinking skills such as these, recommended by educational psychologist Alan Bowd of Canada's Lakehead University: fluency, flexibility, originality, elaboration, visualization, transformation, and synthesis. http://www.asbj.com/current/research.html Compare this to the description of another classroom environment that optimizes learning (found in chapter 6 of How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School) The learner-centered, assessment-centered, community-centered classroom-- 1) Schools and classrooms must be learner-centered. Teachers must pay close attention to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that learners bring to the classroom…Learner-centered classrooms present students with just manageable difficulties—that is challenging enough to maintain engagement, but not so difficult as to lead to discouragement. 2) To provide a knowledge-centered classroom environment, attention must be given to what is taught (information, subject matter), why it is taught (understanding), and what competence or mastery looks like. 3) Formative assessments—ongoing assessments designed to make students’ thinking visible to both teachers and students—are essential. . . .In the assessment-centered classroom environment, formative assessments help both teachers and students monitor progress. 4) Learning is influenced in fundamental ways by the context in which it takes place. A community-centered approach requires the development of norms, as well as connections to the outside world, that support core learning values. All the Best, Meta Potts, Moderator 4-EFF List FOCUS on Literacy Glen Allen, VA
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