Creating Significant Learning Environment
Todd Nesloney, Dave Burgess and George Couros, 3 educators that are echoing the ideas found in A New Culture of Learning. Support play and imagination, learn from a collective, and the learner is the one learning. These three key components of A New Culture of Learning are seen in the way these educators teach, innovate, and care for their students and other educators. I challenge myself and my organization to take up these same causes to increase change the culture of the educators around me. Embrace a culture where the school and classroom is a fertile, significant learning environment. Allowing play and imagination to flourish and limitations and constraints only make the exploration more developed. As I have written multiple times, it is the access to unlimited resources that personal mobile devices bring that encourage this pursuit of self-directed learning and discovery. Creating connections in the learning, with each other, and making that connection relevant within the confines of the “rules of the game” (Thomas, D. & Brown, J.S., 2011, p. 61).
Challenges with the shift
Shifting toward this culture of learning can be stifled by the mechanistic forms of today’s education (Thomas, D. & Brown, J.S., 2011, p. 549). Focus on standardized testing and shifting from the traditional role of the teacher can bring a challenge from educators to a change to this new culture.
Standardization of learning
Standardized testing is the norm in today’s public education classroom. Educators are pressured to focus on the test scores and outcomes of every data point possible, that giving students the ability to be imaginative or creative would only delay progress to raising the scores. It is reported the opposite of this, in the Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, that fostering inquiry and creativity does increase testing scores (2010, p 54-57). The report describes how allowing for inquiry combines both process and content skills.
Role of the teacher
In this new culture of learning, the teacher’s role will be augmented as well. They are no longer teaching the students, rather providing the environment for the student to learn. Thomas and Brown relate this to a scientist developing an organism in a petri dish. Creating a medium for the growth to occur, the resources for the organism to develop, and allowing to change and grow without fulling knowing the final result (Thomas, D. & Brown, J.S., 2011, p. 63). This too can be a challenge that could be faced, as teachers can be unwilling to allowing the learning to be organic and student-directed. Taking a step back from being the source of all information, as what was modeled to them in their universities studies, and being a cultivator of student learning. With the vast resources afforded to today’s students via massive open online courses (MOOC), Wikipedia, YouTube, and various other online sources, a student can tap into multiple sources of information. It is now the teacher’s job to help students comprehend credible resources, and decipher what is most useful. To support teachers in this, they too will have to become the student. Learn how to best guide students, direct resource gathering, and how to support the learning without direct delivery. Mentor sessions, modeling, and encouraging their own embrace of the new culture of learning will be essential to support this new environment being created.
They are no longer teaching the students, rather providing the environment for the student to learn.
Impact of a significant learning environment
Creating a learner-centered, imaginative, organic learning environment will have an impact on the growth and learning of the students. Providing time for play, exploration, imagination, and creativity, within a constrained situation can spur the development of learning that is unique and fulfilling to each learner. A student that is learning a topic such as the French Revolution in this significant learning environment will a have a completely different learning experience and outcome than one in the traditional learning environment. Using creativity to develop questions that will lead to further discoveries, exploration of interest and new ideas that develop, and using creativity to show learning will cause a shift from teaching to learning.
iPads support in a significant learning environment
The multi-faceted and adaptable learning tool such as an iPad will help support this new form of learning. A personal device such as iPad allows all students to explore the questions that are developed, encouraging even deeper questioning. Using productivity apps, a student is now able to plan and follow through with their own self-driven action plans. Keeping on task and focused on the self-directed learning. Apps that encourage creativity like Morpho, Touchcast, and Book Creator, give a medium for students to present their learning in an insightful and individualized way. Finally, using an open-ended device like an iPad will support a development of broad, holistic approach to student learning. Focusing on the skills and objectives of the learning and not the tools themselves will lead to a more student-directed and natural learning environment for the student. Students are able to keep focus on where they are in their own development of the knowledge and not wait for a teacher to tell them. Just as was reported in the International Journal Of Applied & Basic Medical Research, medical students that used self-assessments (focused on the student learning, and not the teaching) showed a dramatic improvement of the positive marks between testings (Sharma, R., Jain, A., Gupta, N., Garg, S., Batta, M., & Dhir, S. K., 2016). Keeping the focus on the exploration, play and creativity will drive the learning in the correct and holistic direction.
Focusing on the skills and objectives of the learning and not the tools themselves will lead to a more student-directed and natural learning environment
Influence of learning philosophy and innovation plan
Based on the reading of The New Culture of Learning, the development of significant learning environments will be a part of my broader learning philosophy. Where students are encouraged to develop their own paths and strategies to be successful, and develop a sense of awe and wonder of the world around them. Encouraging a worldly view of what is expected to be learned. This worldly view will also support my innovation plan. As the goal of the innovation plan is to increase the effective use of iPads in the classroom, this section of my learning philosophy can support that as well. Focusing on the effective use of iPads and not one particular skill or application of the iPad leads to a more fully developed student. Ready to enter the world with skills and not just textual knowledge. As has been reported by the Department of Labor the workforce is shifting from a manufacturing to service based jobs (Futurework - Trends and Challenges for Work in the 21st Century - U.S. DOL., 1999). These jobs will require the employee to face challenges that are not always the same and that may not have a clear solution. The skills that a student develops with imagination and creativity while being constrained can provide skills for these types of jobs. The creation of significant learning environment and iPad supported learning can provide the student the support she needs to be successful in this changing world.
References
Burgess, D. (2011, April 05). Life isn’t 100% or Fail. Retrieved November 15, 2016, from http://daveburgess.com/life-isnt-100-or-fail/
Couros, G. (2016, June 05). Empowered learning. Retrieved November 15, 2016, from http://georgecouros.ca/blog/archives/tag/empowered-learning
Futurework - Trends and Challenges for Work in the 21st Century - U.S. DOL. (n.d.). Retrieved November 17, 2016, from https://www.dol.gov/dol/aboutdol/history/herman/reports/futurework/report.htm
Nesloney, T. (1970, January 01). Learning. Always Learning. Thanks @benjamingilpin. Retrieved November 15, 2016, from http://nesloneyflipped.blogspot.com/2015/11/learning-always-learning-thanks.html
Sharma, R., Jain, A., Gupta, N., Garg, S., Batta, M., & Dhir, S. K. (2016). Impact of self‑assessment by students on their learning. International Journal Of Applied & Basic Medical Research, 6(3), 226-229. doi:10.4103/2229-516X.186961
Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2011). >A new culture of learning: Cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change. Lexington, KY: CreateSpace
