Effective Learning Environment of Classroom - Thesis Proposal Example

Effective Learning Environment room Introduction Efforts to change schools have taken various forms throughout the 20th century, but recent educational and other media reports seem to have fueled an increase in the urgency and vigor with which educators and other stakeholders pursue reform programmes. Combined with concerns about the state of education in the United Kingdom have come efforts to increase and improve the use of computer technology in schools. In some cases, reformers have explicitly pointed to technology as an important link to the creation of more efficient and effective learning environments. However, previous efforts by educators to integrate new technologies into educational practices have typically fallen short of lofty expectations. Likewise, a myriad of reform efforts in general appear to have been met with resistance by teachers and other school stakeholders. Literature Review Recent reform efforts have emphasised reflective, continuous processes that see schools redefined as learning organisations (Bennett, 20) and that involve a variety of stakeholders in the school and local community including students, parents, educators, and local leaders. An important aspect of these processes is the identification of core perceptions held by those involved. In the foreword to Teaching with Technology Becker (2005) argued that curriculum reform required of both teachers and students a reconceptualisation of their respective roles in the learning environment, a difficult process at best. As reformers bring other stakeholders into the mix, identifying attitudes and perceptions about teaching and learning may become even more critical. And although teacher perceptions about education-related matters have been studied (Becker, 386), little is known about the perception systems of other stakeholders. Our study examines perceptions about the classroom learning environment held by teachers and explores some important issues related to these perceptions. To be able to make a child understand something is an amazing task. When you see something occur, it makes it so much easier to understand. To read an article about a horrible car crash is one thing. But to be at the scene of the accident is another story all together. The crash will have a major impact on witnesses because they were there and they saw how it happened. The same is true for education too. Learning will have a deeper impact on students if they experience it first hand. The use of computers in schools has been linked to a shift from traditional, didactic educational practices to more student-centered, interactive learning activities (Becker, 392). Recently, several notable innovative projects have been developed that exemplify how technology can support these types of activities. The Jasper Woodbury series, the Computer-Supported Intentional Learning Environments (CSILE) project, and multimedia environments that organise and support learning through teaching (MOST) use technology as a tool to enable students to explore problem situations in authentic learning environments while stressing higher-order thinking skills and collaborative problem-solving strategies. Fullen (2004) contrasted classroom `activity patterns" likely experienced in traditional public school classrooms with those they found in communities of learners, or intentional (nontraditional) learning environments (Becker, 385). In an intentional learning environment, students are engaged in active research and become managers of their own learning. Central to this model is the perception that expertise is distributed among people, tools, and other contextual artifacts found in the learning environment. To illustrate the differences between their communities of learners and traditional classrooms, this paper will contrast the two classroom philosophies in terms of five roles: students, teachers, curriculum, computers, and assessment. In the intentional learning environment, the student becomes an active researcher and a teacher to other students instead of a receptacle into which information is deposited. The teacher becomes more of a facilitator, not just the provider of knowledge and manager of the classroom. The focus of the curriculum, according to Fullen (2004) is on understanding of content rather than fragmented fact retention. The role of the computer in the intentional learning environment is as a tool to support and extend learning opportunities, as opposed to delivering drill-and-practice activities. Finally, assessment focuses on the process of learning, through portfolios and projects, rather than on recall of factual content. Bennett, Jordan, Long, & Wade (2005) co-investigators in the community of learners research project, described six roles: curriculum and content are listed as distinct categories along with the student, teacher, computer, and assessment roles described previously. Curriculum in an intentional learning environment, for Heller and Gordon, focuses on "learning to learn" or thinking skills and the process of learning as opposed to basic skill acquisition and focus on content knowledge in the traditional classroom. Regarding the role of content in the nontraditional learning environment, emphasis is placed on depth of instructional content rather than broad coverage of subjects and on integration of skills across curricula rather than on a fragmented curriculum. Purpose of Study The purpose of this study is, to evaluate the learning environment and the teacher as a reflective practitioner. This research started from visiting a primary school for half of the day, located in the Southern part of London. Research work involved observation of year 2 classroom with 20 pupils in it, as a learning environment. The teacher of year 2 was asked to fill a questionnaire with 18 questions in it, prepared by the researcher in order to evaluate her teaching skills as a reflective practitioner. Observation and Discussion It was observed that the teacher typically use projects and portfolios for assessment and, in some cases, have received specialised training in how to use these assessment methods. Moreover, the student’s curriculum tends to be grounded in a tradition that emphasises student activity, exploration, and play. This, arguably, is more in line with a childs natural learning processes; perhaps because of this, primary school teachers may hold a more positive view about the responsibility a student can handle in his or her own learning. It may also be true that classroom activities that reflect a constructivist philosophy provide students with more natural learning contexts, ones that students choose to engage in rather than circumvent. Teachers who do not believe students can be effective managers of their learning most assuredly represent a hurdle to school reformers who advocate student-centered learning environments. Encouraged, in part, by the success of these programmes, it has been suggested that technology, in particular computer technology, should play a vital role in the school reform movement because of its ability to extend traditional classroom practices and support student-centered, open-ended learning environments (Fullen, 35). Learning in such environments, Means argued, differs from traditional educational practices in a number of ways. Learning in a reformed classroom might be characterised by a high level of student exploration, highly interactive instruction, and student collaboration for extended periods of time on authentic and multidisciplinary projects, the teacher acting as facilitator and coach, and predominantly performance-based assessment strategies. Consideration needs to be given not only to those ultimately responsible for implementing change, namely teachers, but also to others being asked to support the reform, namely parents. A key task for school reformers, including those interested in the use of technology to support reform, is to determine what educators and other school stakeholders believe about the classroom learning environment. This was found that older teachers held more traditional views about teaching styles, while younger teachers held more progressive views. This has been revealed that within schools, teachers are in the best position to be change agents. Therefore, it is important to determine which teachers are more likely to embrace change and hold views that are consistent with school reform efforts. As Scardamalia (2005) and others have pointed out, use of technology in the reformed classroom requires a significant shift in the teachers traditional classroom role. Children are changing very much, very fast and in order to accommodate for these changes, teaching methods need to have some variety put into them. Hands-on activities are not the best route to go in every situation. For instance, if one were trying to tell about the Holocaust, it would seem disrespectful to have the students reenact a scene, as Sewall argues is usually the case. This sort of teaching should be done with sensitivity and respect so that the children do not receive a false conception of what the Holocaust was like. This is observed that childrens attention spans are getting smaller and smaller as compare to previous generations and so many times an activity is going to be disadvantageous to the students. Kids need to be able to sit and listen for an extended period of time if their attention span is going to increase. Activity-based learning environment should not be a copout that teachers use in order to adjust to the short attention span of children. However, if a half hour lecture is given to a class and then an hour long activity follows it, the children will not react with such outbursts that show evidence of disinterest. Children get more out of school than just the basic book knowledge. It is a place where kids go in order to receive all sorts of knowledge. Skills are taught to the children by teachers and peers that can be used in the real world; how to interact with peers, increase attention span, respect for others, and expand imagination and so on. The mind is something that needs to grow just as much as the human body needs to. The brain is an amazing tool that with the proper adjustments can be used to accomplish almost anything. Keeping this in mind, it would make sense to give students a problem and let them attempt to figure it out on their own before just handing them the answer. Working together is something they are going to have to do for the rest of their lives and so doing activities that require group thinking would make sense. The function of a teacher in the teaching process has changed a lot. The teacher-mentor, the teacher director cannot give the student choice and cannot provide freedom in teaching. Such negative images disappeared in the past. They were replaced by a teacher - observer, a teacher -facilitator, a teacher - tolerant one, and a teacher - supervisor. The teacher is really an organiser of modern courses. This is observed that, the expansion of technology has brought about a lot of advantages to the field of teaching and learning including providing a wide range of materials, innovating the subject’s instruction and resulting in the appearance of e-learning. The Internet, with a huge number of websites it provides, has become a necessary resource for study. Since most of the websites are available in English language, hence students can significantly improve their vocabularies. Also, there are many websites that have been established just for the promotion of particular subject, to which teacher had downloaded materials for her own lecture. Meanwhile, students also used these websites for self-studying purposes. Every teacher that proves to be highly effective in teaching does not need to have same characteristics. If an individual think about their favorite teachers, all such teachers did not possess same teaching style or traits. No each teacher has their own special identity with their students due to many different factors. So what makes an effective teacher is something that will be explained differently from student to student. However, there are some characteristics that help educators be an effective teacher. Most of these ideas come from experiences with teachers, from readings, and personal experience trying to teach others. To begin with a teacher, who is well educated, understands the material they are teaching, and can effectively transfer the lesson to the students will always be an effective educator. It is good for all teachers to fit into this broad statement, but it doesnt really get into the meat of the subject. In order to really be an effective teacher there are many avenues in which they can travel. It really comes down to what the teacher believes will be most effective and how well that style of teaching goes with their character/beliefs. These avenues all have different outcomes when taught by certain teachers. We must also consider the demographic of the students the educator is teaching. This is observed that class teacher tried her best to relate the course material to students life experiences for optimal participation and learning. For instance, she said ‘when I was in sixth grade my teacher taught us pigskin geography’. It integrated football with learning geography, math, and spelling. This sort of idea is what helps kids want to learn using new ways to teach to break the repetitiveness of the everyday thing. These new ideas might be using computers (technology new and old), or getting out of the classroom (field trips), or just letting someone else come and talk to them once in awhile (dad/mom day, Junior Achievement, DARE, the list goes on). Educators who have a positive attitude and continually encourage their students to not only try, but to try their hardest will most likely rub their optimistic outlook off onto their students. Conclusion Our research suggests that a teacher is the best person who can generate most effective learning environment within a classroom. These findings have important implications for school administrators, curriculum developers, and others interested in educational reform, as well as those engaged in designing learning environments rooted in constructivism. If technologys role in the reformed classroom is critical, it would seem that more needs to be done to examine teacher’s attitudes about proposed changes and technology initiatives. Finally, once the educator has the students attention and can show them that learning can be fun they will need to make sure that the material is covered and comprehended. Educators with a formal set of rules that can keep the students behaved without totally restricting them as long as the teacher makes sure this works well. Works Cited Becker, H. How computers are used in schools: Journal of Educational Computing Research, UK, Oxford University Press, 2005, pp 385-406. Bennett, N., Jordan, J., Long, G., & Wade, B. Teaching styles and pupil progress. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005, 20- 25. Fullan, M. Change forces: Probing the depths of educational reform. London: Falmer Press, 2004, 34- 40. Scardamalia, M., Bereiter, C., & Lamon, M. The CSILE project: Trying to bring the classroom into World 3. In K. McGilly (Ed.), Classroom lessons, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003, 200-210. Read More