Design teams considered the following five aspects of learningscapes.
AFFECTIVE ATMOSPHERES
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“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.” – Dale Carnegie |
Social and emotional learning is the process of developing and supporting the affective competencies of students – self-awareness, social or other-awareness, relationship skills, self-management, and decision-making – through nurturing and caring learning environments and experiences. Affective education seeks to enhance students’ growth in attitudes, interests, character, values, motivation, and other areas within the social-emotional domain. It is evident in programs focused on moral education, character education, conflict resolution, social skills development, and self-awareness. Environmental design should consider learning physiology. Learning spaces should be welcoming, comfortable, physically and emotionally safe, imaginative, and stimulating.
PHYSICAL SETTINGS
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“The aesthetic of architecture has to be rooted in a broader idea about human activities like walking, relaxing and communicating. Architecture thinks about how these activities can be given added value.” – Thom Mayne |
Architectural design, operating with given constraints, focuses on the components of a structure or system and unifies them into a coherent and functional whole. Architect Louis Sullivan believed that “form follows function,” while Frank Lloyd Wright argued that “form and function are one.” Teachers and learners need flexible space and access to multiple resources for personal study and collaboration, instruction and exploration, and discussion and presentation. Adapting or designing buildings and natural learning environments incorporates structural and aesthetic choices that impact teachers’ and students’ intellectual stimulation, social, interaction, and psychological well-being.
PEDAGOGY
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“Our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitudes and expectations.” – Earl Nightingale |
Changing the culture of schooling involves consideration of extending education, currently restricted by antiquated traditions of time and space, beyond the boundaries of the school building and the conventional school day, re-examining learning goals, and employing pedagogies that facilitate collaborative multidisciplinary experimentation, innovation, and knowledge creation. A shift from teacher directed instruction to active problem-based exploration can develop skills needed in the 21st Century. Synchronous and asynchronous learning can connect students, teachers, families, and communities locally and globally.
SOCIAL ENVIRONMENTS
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“The creative individual has the capacity to free himself from the web of social pressures in which the rest of us are caught. He is capable of questioning the assumptions that the rest of us accept.” – John Gardner |
A learning environment, which extends from the school into the community and beyond, has cultural practices and social norms. The situational context of education includes linguistic, economic, social, cultural, and political factors, as well as conditions such as students' personal characteristics, family support, and quality of instruction. All of these factors influence the lives of students and their academic performance. Greater attention to inclusivity, interactive engagement, and social networking can develop the sense of community and trusting relationships needed for collaborative learning.
VIRTUAL SPACE
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"The challenge is not simply to incorporate learning technologies into current institutional approaches, but rather to change our fundamental views about effective teaching and learning and to use technology to do so." – Donald Hanna |
Blended learning is a pedagogical approach that combines the socialization opportunities of the classroom with the technologically enhanced active learning possibilities of the online environment. Classroom time can be used to engage students in collaborative interactive experiences. Meanwhile, the Internet can provide students with multimedia-rich content at any time of day, anywhere the student has Web access. A virtual learning environment integrates a variety of connected digital devices and interactive online technologies to find, analyze, manipulate, create, and communicate information. Online communities can enable students to work in teams with peers, teachers, and experts both locally and internationally.
