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The Design of Learning Environments
The document discusses four types of learning environments: learner-centered, knowledge-centered, assessment-centered, and community-centered. Each type has strengths and weaknesses. Learner-centered environments focus on students but may not teach necessary skills. Knowledge-centered environments promote understanding but only focus on knowledge. Assessment-centered environments improve teaching and learning but assessment is only part of education. Community-centered environments connect learning to communities but only focus on breadth, not depth. An ideal learning environment would incorporate aspects of each type to address their weaknesses and accelerate both in-school and out-of-school learning.
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The Design of Learning Environments
- 1. The Design ofLearning Environments Minh Nguyen
- 2. 1. Changes inEducation In Chapter 1, we already knew that education has been changing during the past century. Especially, in 21st century, education goals are very different from before. For example: Writing skill In early 1800s, students were forced to write as instructor’s notation. Until 1930s, students could express themselves in writing.
- 3. 1. Changes inEducation (contd’) Similar, the challenges and expectation have undergone major changes in each history period. For example: Early 1900s, expectation and challenge was education coverage. They applied “factory model” to education. Nowadays, expectation and challenge is to educate quality students. Therefore, to design a good learning environment, we need to take an overall objective view.
- 4. 2. Types ofLearning Environments
- 5. 2. Types ofLearning Environments (contd’) 2.1. Learner-centered environments As the name refer, these environments focus on knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs of the learners. This term fits the concept of “diagnostic teaching”. Diagnostic teaching: Discover the way students think about the problems. Show them their misconceptions. Provoke them to readjust their idea.
- 6. 2. Types ofLearning Environments (contd’) Key strategy for diagnostic teaching: Ask students to make predictions about various situations and explain the reasons for their predictions. Select tasks that well represent known misconceptions to show students how and why various ideas might need to change. For example: The story of half-black and half-white ball.
- 7. 2. Types ofLearning Environments (contd’) Teachers’ sensitivity to the students’ culture and beliefs plays an important role in learner-centered environments. For example: My old English teacher used to be very successful in Vietnam because he had unique teaching style. He then decided to move to UAE because he thought he could earn a lot of money there, but he failed horribly. In a multi-culture education environments like US. There is one standard way of talking in both school and professional science is “impersonal and expository, without any reference to personal or social intentions or experiences.” However, everyday communication cannot avoid social things such as culture, beliefs, character, etc. The responses of other students and the teacher to these are the key to assist students’ scientific understanding.
- 8. 2. Types ofLearning Environments (contd’) 2.2. Knowledge-centered environments In Chapter 2, we already knew that thinking and solving problems is not simply due to “thinking skills” or strategies, but requires well-organized bodies of knowledge that support planning and strategic thinking. These environments seeks the balance of the understanding and the automaticity of skills necessary to function effectively Without carefully considering the knowledge that students’, it is difficult to predict what they will understand about new information. For example: Fish is Fish.
- 9. 2. Types ofLearning Environments (contd’) Knowledge-centered environments also focus on the kinds of information and activities that help students develop an understanding of disciplines. For example: Verrocchio asked Da Vinci to keep drawing an egg. Knowledge-centered environments also include an emphasis on sense-making. Student need to have the metacognitive by expecting new information to make sense and asking for clarification when it doesn’t. For example: Sense of drawing an egg. There are some new approaches sense-making. One is “progressive formalization.” Progressive formalization: gradually formalize an informal idea. For example: Define the term “density” for primary students.
- 10. 2. Types ofLearning Environments (contd’) Progressive formalization Some people claim that children are incapable of thinking and reasoning sophisticatedly. A research shows that the early access has potential benefit to important conceptual ideas. For example: Applying “cognitively guided” instruction in geometry for second-grade children. Amazingly, the result showed their skills for representing and visualizing three-dimensional forms are better then some undergraduate students at a leading university. One of the important thing is to organize knowledge and skills into coherent wholes.
- 11. 2. Types ofLearning Environments (contd’) There is a curriculum called “learning the landscape” that match progressive formalization pretty well. Learning the landscape: Learning your way around, Learning what resources are available, Learning how to use those resources.
- 12. 2. Types ofLearning Environments (contd’) 2.3. Assessment-centered environments These environments provide opportunities for feedback and revision. There are two major uses of assessment: Formative: use feedback to improve teaching and learning. Summative: measures what students have learned at the end, from that design the next lessons properly.
- 13. 2. Types ofLearning Environments (contd’) 2.3.1. Formative Many researches show that feedback is very important. Therefore students’ thinking must be made visible. After finishing a lesson, most students move on and work on new things. Effective teachers also help students build skills of self-assessment. For example: Students learn to assess their own work, as well as the work of their peers.
- 14. 2. Types ofLearning Environments (contd’) 2.3.2. Summative This is very effective way to test students’ understanding. This could be via tests, homework, exams, etc. However, to design a good summative assessment is not an easy task. For example: Some students learn like a parrot to deal with some exams. They could not answer questions that required the true understanding. And you can call these exams bad assessments.
- 15. 2. Types ofLearning Environments (contd’) 2.4. Community-centered environments Community-centered focus on the interaction to around environment. Community centered should be understood broadly. It could be classroom, school, or degree to which students, teachers, and administers feel connected to the larger community of homes, businesses, states, the nation, and even the world. 2.4.1. Small communities The norms and expectations play an important role in classrooms and schools communities. For example: Why we divide ECE department and CS department? Norms increase people’s opportunities to interact, receive feedback, and learn.
- 16. 2. Types ofLearning Environments (contd’) 2.4.2. Connect to broader communities To function effectively in life, students need more than in classroom and school. Family is a great learning environment, especially for young children. Society teach us many things about life. For example: Nice guys finish last.
- 17. 2. Types ofLearning Environments (contd’) Important role of Television: Nowadays, children keep watching TV everyday. Experiment show that educational programs have positive benefits and can help children perform better. This could be considered as an effective educational method. For example: Children who watched episodes of Sesame Street featuring handicapped children had more positive feelings toward children with disabilities.
- 18. 3. Conclusion 1. Learner-centeredenvironments Pros: Provide students un-biased views. Help students to realize their misconceptions. Help building bridges between students - teachers, and students – students (mutual understanding). Cons: Learner-centered environments would not necessarily help students acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to function effectively in society. 2. Knowledge-centered environments Pros: Promote the true knowledge understanding and necessary skills to function effectively in society. Cons: Only focus on understanding of knowledge.
- 19. 3. Conclusion (contd’) 3.Assessment-centered environments Pros: Help increasing the quality of both teaching and learning. Cons: Assessment is only a part of education. Therefore, these environments do not help students in developing other aspects and skills. 4. Community-centered environments Pros: Help students to connect knowledge from around communities, apply what they learn in school to life. Cons: Only focus on the wideness of knowledge, not the depth.
- 20. 3. Conclusion (contd’) They all have the potential to overlap and mutually influence one another. The disadvantages of this environments can be fulfilled by other environments. Therefore, it is very important to have alignment among the four perspectives of learning environments. It helps accelerating learning both within and outside of schools.