A learning environment is the milieu
Learning Environment
A
learning environment is the milieu in which the instructor, the content, and
the learners are placed for instruction to occur. It is shaped by the type of
instruction that needs to occur, and it is influenced by the attitudes and
preferences of those who organize and those who attend (Brown & Green,
2016, pp. 118). One needs to design a learning environment, but it has no single
recipe. One can just have salient characteristics of the environment and for
that one needs a structure from which to draw the salient characteristics
(Branford, 2000, pp131).
My
group of learners consist of Indian female teachers teaching math online for
the company that I work for as an instructional designer. Although they are
born and brought up in India, the community of learners is global. The goal for
me is to help them develop the skills used by global teachers in their
classrooms through online training sessions. I am taking the two prompts to
probe into the ways I would do it.
- Is my learning environment open ended or directed?
The
Environment is a blend of open ended and directed. I find that teachers love to
share their classroom stories and hence discussions can go out of the way. Here
I need to bring some direction by giving them space to write in the feedback
form. This will help cut short the long discussions and keep the session crisp.
However, being adult learners, they would need the space to feel free of
directions. For this I would create space for community discussions.
The
Instructional Activity for open ended space would be breakout room discussions
with a task that can be modified by them if need be. For example, I would give
a set of learning outcomes to teach math and ask them to create one question
for each outcome in such a way that the set of questions have a flow that is
strong enough to be used in a single lesson. They would work on it in a group,
however they would have the freedom to change the learning outcomes.
- What is my learning environment oriented towards?
The
learning environment I want to create is a blend of (a) Learner Centric (b)
Knowledge Centric, and (c) Community Centric. I have a certain amount of
knowledge to impart to the adult learners and would build activities for the
same (Bransford, 2000, pp.136), however I would do that in both an individual
and community spaces for working in a community creates a space for the
learners to learn from each other and continuously improve (Bransford, 2000,
pp.136). I am aware that end of the day, learners construct their own meaning
in any space and that depends on the belief systems that they bring to the
learning zone (Bransford, 2000, pp. 133). Hence I need to keep an eye on the
knowledge to be imparted, activities I would create but most importantly, have
the space in my mind and heart to give learners reason (Bransford, 2000,
pp.136).
I
would use multiple activities for creation of such a learning environment such
as probing questions to the whole group, small group discussions in break out
rooms, handing the learners creative tasks to be done and finally creating a
space for all of them to set an independent goal for themselves to implement in
the class. Each teacher/learner may come up with a different goal for herself.
To
create a safe space, and to acknowledge their working hours where they conduct
classes at odd hours of night and early mornings, I would have an informal
atmosphere where they can bring in their food, tea or kids while we are having
a session.
Conclusion
There
is no limit to the level of exploration one can go into when creating learner
centric environments, for the learner or user is at the heart of it. As the
user changes or evolves, the environment also can be tweaked. Hence as a
designer, I also keep growing instead of staying fixated in a certain model of
thinking. What I learnt today is that having a set of prompts to help me
construct the model around which I can conduct the training is very helpful. I
can use the one given and add more to it as I grow as a designer.
References
●
Bransford, J. D. (2000). THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS. Retrieved
from
https://www.desu.edu/sites/flagship/files/document/16/how_people_learn_book.pdf
●
Brown, A. H. & Green, T. D. (2016). The
essentials of instructional design: Connecting fundamental principles with
process and practice. https://ikhsanaira.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/the-essential-of-instructional-design.pdf
●
Montes, B. (Published Dec 31, 2013). Instructional design-Unit 6:
Goal analysis. https://youtu.be/swUhT7VaMLM
●
US Dept of Education. (2017). Reimaging the role
of technology in education: 2017 National education technology plan update.
Retrieved from: https://tech.ed.gov/files/2017/01/NETP17.pdf
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