Effective Learning Environment & Impact of Time on Learning

What is an Effective Learning
Environment

LEARNING
Learning is the act of acquiring new or modifying
and reinforcing existing, knowledge, behaviors,
Skills, values, or preferences and may involve
synthesizing different types of information. The
ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals,
plants and some machines. (Wikipedia)

Learning Environment
Learning Environment is the place where
teaching and learning take place in the most
effective and productive manner. It consists of
the classroom and all the instructional features
and non-threatening classroom climate needed
in planning and implementing all teaching and
learning activities.

Effective Learning Environment
Effective learning environment (also known as
classroom management) involves organizing
classroom activities, instructions, and the physical
classroom to provide for effective use of time, to
create a happy, productive learning environment,
and to minimize disruptions.

Structuring the Physical
Environment
Desk arrangements
Student placement
Light Arrangements
Classroom decoration

Desk Arrangement
 Desks in
groups, with
students facing
each other, can
help stimulate
student
discussion.

Desk Arrangement
 Desks in single or
double rows are
good for
demonstrations,
independent work
and exams.

Desk Arrangement
 Desks in
u-shapes are
recommended
where possible.

Desk Arrangement
 Desks in workstations
are suited for
students who have
developed self
management skills.

Student Placement
 Place easily distracted students away
from each other, doorways, windows
and areas of high traffic.
 Preferably, place to one side of the
classroom, close to the front.
 An inclusive classroom should place
students in areas of the class best
suited to their needs.

Classroom Decoration
 Students like to see their own work
displayed, even in High Schools
 Class-made posters help students
develop a sense of belonging to the
classroom
 Plants and animals can have positive
effects on the classroom (Nicholls, 2006)

Structuring the Emotional, Behavioral
and Instructional Environment
“It is the teacher’s responsibility to value each
and every one of the students in their class, so
that each student feels special and important.”
(Groundwater-Smith et al, 1998)

10 Tips for Effective Learning Environment
1. Build Community.
2. Design a safe, Friendly and Well Managed
Classroom Environment.
3. Include Students in Creating Rules, Norms,
Routines, and Consequences.
4. Create a Variety of Communication
Channels.
5. Always Be Calm, Fair, and Consistent

10 Tips for Effective Learning Environment
6. Know the Students You Teach
7. Address Conflict Quickly and Wisely
8. Integrate Positive Classroom Rituals
9. Keep It Real
10. Partner with Parents and Guardians

Build Community
Building caring relationships with
students is the cornerstone of good
classroom management. Building these
relationships—teacher-student, student-
student, classroom-community—and
creating the time and space to do so in
the beginning of the year and throughout
the following months can make or break
a classroom. Simply put, when there is
care in the air, there will be significantly
fewer behavioral problems. Get to know
one another: Teachers and students
begin learning one another’s names the
first day of school and should be able to
address one another by name within two
weeks.

Design a Safe, Friendly, and Well-
Managed Classroom Environment
The right physical environment helps
create a positive learning community.
When students walk into a classroom,
they need to feel ownership. Their writing
assignments and projects should prevail
on the walls, and they should have easy
access to supplies and handouts and a
place to turn in class assignments. Ask
students to be designers of their room:
They choose where to hang the
dioramas on photosynthesis or the book
reports, and they get to do the hanging.
Also, charts, directions—any permanent
posters—should be written by student
hands. The more they see themselves in
the environment, the more they feel
valued (and the fewer number of
conflicts we teachers will have with
them).

Include Students in Creating Rules,
Norms, Routines, and Consequences
Rules are different from routines and
norms. Rules come with consequences
whereas routines and norms have
reminders. When establishing both rules
and routines, it’s crucial that students
have a say in the matter. The teacher’s
role is to facilitate and guide students
through the steps to develop social
contracts. What’s the result? Students
have full ownership in what has been
decided around class norms,
expectations, and consequences. The
start of a new school year is the ideal
time to draw up a social contract. Start
by asking kids to brainstorm about all the
things they see, feel, and hear in a
classroom that make them feel
comfortable, safe, and happy.

Create a Variety of Communication
Channels
 Having varied and reliable options for students to
talk with you will help keep your class running
smoothly. Encourage students to connect with
you online. Provide them with your school email
account so they can send you their questions,
concerns, and suggestions, or use social-media
tools to connect with students who are old
enough to have Facebook accounts. Offer a
variety of times when you are available. This will
make certain that all students are able to come
and sit down with you privately for a chat if
needed (before school, once a week at
lunchtime, any day after school). Place a
suggestion box on your desk where students can
leave anonymous notes. Include one or two
assignments for which students can just freewrite
anything, including a letter to you if they wish.
Students grow emotionally and socially as they
share their intellectual thoughts and ideas with
one another. As teachers, we must explicitly
integrate as much time for this as possible. We
can do so through such activities as tea parties,
and birthday parties.

Always Be Calm, Fair, and Consistent
 Trust is the beating, healthy heart of a
functioning classroom. Without it,
classroom management is nearly
impossible, as is building relationships
with students. A calm, fair, and consistent
teacher is a trusted one. Always keep a
calm and steady demeanor, even if your
head and heart are telling you to act
differently. Use those acting skills we all
acquire as teachers! And when you feel
the blood boiling, remember this: Kids do
not trust reactive teachers, and often they
don’t respect them. Fear should never be
the great motivator in our classrooms. So
please don’t shout.

Know the Students You Teach
A teacher must know about his or
her students as it is the first trait of
leadership. Ask yourself this
question, “How well do I know
myself?” Thinking about this
question helps you to better know
and understand your students. By
looking at your own background
(economics, culture, education, and
gender), you will be able to
acknowledge the lens through which
you view your students. For
example, if you grew up middle
class but teach students whose
families live mainly below the
poverty line; you can take time to
learn about their specific challenges.

Address Conflict Quickly and Wisely
 Don’t let conflict fester. That means you should
be sure to address an issue between you and
a student or between two students as quickly
as possible. Bad feelings—on your part or the
students—can so quickly grow from molehills
into mountains.
 Now, for handling those conflicts wisely, you
and the student should step away from the
other students, just in the doorway of the
classroom perhaps. Ask naive questions such
as, “How might I help you?” Don’t accuse the
child of anything. Act as if you do care, even if
you have the opposite feeling at that moment.
The student will usually become disarmed
because he or she is expecting you to be
angry and confrontational. So you should
always take a positive approach. Say, “It looks
like you have a question” rather than, “Why are
you off task and talking?”
 When students have conflicts with each other,
remain neutral. Use neutral language as you
act as a mediator to help them resolve the
problem peacefully.

Integrate Positive Classroom Rituals
It’s more common in elementary grades
that the day will begin with a community-
building activity. But getting off to a good
start is important at all ages. A teacher
can arrange morning meetings during
which each individual in the group is
acknowledged. It creates a feeling of “we
are all in this together.” Ask for a few
volunteers to share something good that
has happened to them (getting an A on a
test or having a new baby in the family, for
instance). The student can also share an
upcoming event that is positive (such as a
birthday or trip). Ask students to say one
word that describes how they are feeling
today. Start with a volunteer and then
“whip around” the room.

Keep It Real
 Discover the things your
students are interested in—
trends, music, TV shows, and
games—and incorporate those
as you teach the skills,
concepts, and knowledge they
need. You want to attach the
learning to their lives as often
as possible. If the start and end
of a unit feel “real” to your
students, then they are more
likely to be engaged during the
important journey in the middle.

Partner with Parents and Guardians
 This is the last tip for a reason.
Teachers know that partnering with
parents is neither easy nor
completely in our control. Returning a
teacher’s call may not be the top
priority for a parent or guardian. They
may be more concerned with paying
bills, putting food on the table, and so
much more beyond our imaginations.
Yet connecting home and school is
worth the extra effort because of the
benefits for students. And I believe
that effective learning takes place
only when teacher, parents and
student are at one page.

WHAT IS IMPACT OF TIME
ON LEARNING
Time plays very important role in every
field of life, especially in teaching learning
process. Obviously, if no time is spent
teaching a subject, students will not learn
it. However, within the usual range of time
allocated to instruction, how much
difference does time make? An
effective classroom environment for
teaching and learning can be created by
the teacher for maximizing the dedicated
time for instruction and learning. Besides
effective curriculum planning and systemic
assessment, following effective strategies
for delivering instruction and classroom
procedures can be adopted for preventing
and responding to student problem
behavior: -
Using Allocated Time for Instructions.
Using Engaged Time Effectively.

Using Allocated Time for Instructions
Allocated time (also known as available instructional time) is
the time during which students have an opportunity to learn.
When the teacher is lecturing, students can learn by paying
attention. When students have written assignments or other
tasks, they can learn by doing them. Allocated time can be
used effectively by: -
 Preventing Lost Time
 Preventing Lost Starts and Early Finishes
 Preventing Interruptions
 Handling Routine Procedures
 Minimizing Time Spent on Discipline

 Preventing Lost Time
A school is the place for learning and not for marking time. A teacher can use
effectively the lost time by taking initiatives on the spot, eg. A teacher took her
grade four class to the school library, which she found locked. She sent a
student for the key, and while the class waited, the teacher whispered to her
students, “Let’s work on our Time Tables. Five nines are? Seven nines are?
Did a couple of minutes working on Time Tables facts increase the students’
achievement? Of course not. But it probably did help to develop a perception
that school is for learning, not for time marking.
 Preventing Late Starts and Early Finishes
A surprising amount of allocated instructional time is lost because the teacher
does not start teaching at the beginning of the period in most of the schools.
Teachers might spend a long time maintaining attendance register, dealing
with late students or other disciplinary problems before starting the lesson. A
crisp, on-time start to a lesson is important for setting a purposive tone to
instruction. Students must know that if they are late, they will miss something
interesting, fun, and important. Teachers also shortchange students by stop
teaching before the end of the period. To overcome this problem you can plan
more instructions than you think you’ll need, in case you finish the lesson early.

 Preventing Interruptions
One important cause of lost allocated time for instructions is interruptions.
Interruptions may be exactly imposed, such as mobile phone calls or the need to
sign forms sent from the principal’s office. Interruptions not only directly cut into
the time for instructions; they also break the momentum of the lesson, which
reduces students’ attention to the task at hand. Interruptions can be avoided by
planning. For example, putting a “Do not disturb – learning in progress” sign on
the door and switching off the mobile phones.
 Handling Routine Procedures
Some teachers spend too much time on simple classroom routines such as
erasing the black board, getting and depositing papers from the office,
distributing and collecting the papers and material in the class. In other hand
many teachers assign regular class helpers to take care of distribution and
collection of papers, taking messages to the office, erasing the black board, and
other routine tasks that are annoying interruptions for teachers but that students
love to do. Teachers should use student power as much as possible.

 Minimizing Time Spent on Discipline
Disciplinary statements or actions should not interrupt the flow of the lesson. A
sharp glance, silently moving close to an offending student, or a hand signal,
such as putting finger to lips to remind a student to be silent, is usually effective
for the kind of minor behavior problems that teachers must constantly deal with,
and they allow the lesson to proceed without interruption. If students need talking
to about discipline problems, the time to do it is after the lesson or after school,
not in the middle of a lesson. If Momal and Ayesha are talking during a quiet
reading time instead of working, it will be better to say, “Momal and Aysha, see
me after the class,” than to launch into an on-the-spot speech about the
importance of being on-task during seatwork times.

Using Engaged Time Effectively
Engaged time is the time students actually spend doing assigned work. Engaged
time may be different for each student, depending upon a student’s attentiveness
and willingness to work. Strategies for maximizing student time on-task and to
increase their engagement will be discussed in the following sections: -
 Teaching Engaging Lessons
 Maintaining Momentum
 Maintaining Smoothness of Instructions
 Managing Transitions
 Maintaining Group Focus
 Withitness
 Overlapping

 Teaching Engaging Lessons
The best way to increase students’ time on-task is to teach lessons that are so
interesting, engaging, and relevant to students’ interests that students will pay
attention and eagerly do what is asked of them. Part of this strategy calls for the
teacher to emphasize active, rapidly paced instructions with varied modes of
presentation and frequent opportunities for students participation and to
deemphasized independent seatwork, especially unsupervised seatwork as in follow
up time in elementary reading classes.
 Maintaining Momentum
Maintaining momentum during a lesson is a key to keeping task engagement high.
Momentum refers to the avoidance of interruptions or slowdowns (Kounin, 1970). In
a class that maintains good momentum, students always have something to do and,
once started working, are not interrupted. Anyone who has tried to write a term
paper only to be interrupted by telephone calls, knock on the door, and other
disturbances knows that these interruptions cause much more damages to
concentration and progress than the amount of time they take.

 Maintaining Smoothness of Instructions
Smoothness refers to continued focus on a meaningful sequence of instruction.
Smooth instruction avoids jumping without transitions from topic to topic or from the
lesson to other activities, which produces “jarring breaks in the activity flow”. For
example:
– The teacher was conducting a recitation with a subgroup. She was walking toward a child who
was reciting when she passed by the fish bowl. She suddenly stopped walking toward the boy,
and stopped at the fish bowl, saying: "Oh my, I forgot to feed the fish! She then got some fish
food from a nearby shelf and started to feed the fish, saying: "My, see how hungry it is." She
then turned to a girl, saying: "See, Maryam, you forgot to feed the fish. You can see how
hungry it is. See how quickly it comes up to eat."
 This example illustrates how smoothness and momentum are related. The teacher
jumped from her lesson to housekeeping to (unnecessary) disciplining, interrupting
one student's recitation and making it virtually impossible for the other students to
focus on the lesson. As with momentum, smoothness was found to be strongly
associated with student time on-task and achievement.

 Managing Transitions
Transitions are changes from one activity to another; for exmple, from lecture to
seatwork, from subject to subject, or from lesson to lunch. Transitions are occupying
15 percent of class time (Burns, 1984). Teachers' efficiency at managing transitions
between activities is positively related to their students' achievement. Following are
three rules for the management of transitions:
1. When making a transition, give a clear signal to which the students have been
taught to respond.
2. Before the transition is made, students must be certain about what they are to do
when the signal is given.
3. Make transitions all at once. Students should be trained to make transitions
as a group, rather than one student at a time.

Maintaining Group Focus
Maintaining group focus means using classroom organization strategies and
questioning techniques that ensure that all students in the class stay involved in the
lesson, even when only one student is called on by the teacher. Group Alerting is a
questioning strategy that is designed to keep all students on their toes during a
lecture or discussion. One example of group alerting is creating suspense before
calling on a student by saying, "Given triangle ABC, if we know the measures of
sides A and B and of angle AB, what else can we find out about the triangle? . . .
[Pause] . . . Maria?" Note that this keeps the whole class thinking until Maria's name
is called. The opposite effect would have been created by saying, "Maria, given
triangle ABC . . . ," because only Maria would have been alerted. Calling on
students in a random order is another example of group alerting, as is letting
students know that they may be asked questions about the preceding reciter's
answers. For example, the teacher might follow up Maria's answer with "What is the
name of the postulate that Maria used? . . . . Noreen?

 Withitness
It describes teacher’s actions that indicate awareness of students' behavior at all
times. It also called "having eyes in the back of one's head." Teachers who are with-
it can respond immediately to student misbehavior and know who started what.
Teachers who lack withitness can make the error of scolding the wrong student.
 Effective classroom managers have the ability to interpret and act on the mood of
the class as a whole. They notice when students are beginning to be restless or are
otherwise showing signs of declining attention, and they act on this information to
change activities to recapture student engagement.
 Overlapping
Overlapping refers to the teacher's ability to respond to behavior problems without
interrupting the classroom lesson or other instructional activity. For example, one
teacher was teaching a lesson on reading comprehension when he saw a student
looking at a book that was unrelated to the lesson. Without interrupting his lesson,
the teacher walked over to the student, took her book, closed it, and put it on her
desk, all while continuing to speak to the class. This took care of the misbehavior
without slowing the momentum of the lesson; the rest of the class hardly noticed
that the event occurred.

Effective Learning Environment & Impact of Time on Learning

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