This entry in the James H. Stronge Research-to-Practice Series focuses on the characteristics of teachers who create supportive learning environments for their students. By conveying a sense of immediacy, credibility, and caring, they communicate to students in both verbal and nonverbal ways that are essential to cultivating a positive and productive learning community. In this book, Stronge, Grant, and Hindman provide a comprehensive overview of the qualities of a supportive teacher. They offer a bridge between research-based theories and practical classroom applications, with templates, planning forms, and other reproducibles. The authors help teachers move toward establishing a learning environment that contributes to effective instructional practices. Topics include: engaging students and their families, effective communication, student ownership of the learning environment, and much more.
Creating a positive classroom learning environment is a complex but necessary task if a teacher wants to cultivate a new, productive classroom culture. By fully realizing the seven keys the author highlights, teachers can establish clearer expectations, enhance instruction and assessment practices, and foster quality relationships with students, thereby maximizing the potential of all students. The book includes helpful stories from teachers, as well as classroom strategies to consider in implementing the keys. With this book, teachers can clearly define the misunderstood concepts of differentiation and enrichment and know how to use these strategies to help all students succeed, no matter their needed level of support. Benefits Read stories from classroom teachers that highlight how each key can help establish a positive learning environment. Explore research and anecdotal evidence that maintains that students who feel connected are more motivated and successful in the classroom. Learn how the effective use of data can minimize both academic and behavioral challenges among students. Discover collaborative practices that can establish common expectations between teachers and their students, so a positive classroom tone is set when the school year starts. Consider tactics teachers can use to record and analyze data on students' progress, to make informed decisions that help students gain proficiency. Peruse the essential practices that teachers should have in their classroom assessment toolbox. Contents Introduction Classroom Culture and Positive Relationships: Precursors to a Positive Learning Environment Classroom Expectations Targeted Instruction Positive Reinforcement Data-Driven Decisions Differentiation and Enrichment Collaborative Teams Connecting to the Schoolwide System Epilogue References and Resources Index
Teachers are bombarded with trends and competing ideas. This book provides a framework to help you find the right balance between new and old instructional practices, so you can design learning environments that truly enhance learning. The author shares key research-based principles to engage and extend learning, and he debunks common myths. He then shows how to use a classical method and how to engage with new ideas and evidence to create a highly effective learning environment. Each chapter offers reflection and application questions you can use independently or in book studies to get the most out of your reading. Written for teachers of any grade level, the book contains applications and examples across content areas so you can see how to implement the ideas in your own classroom or school.
How do you create a learning environment that’s productive; one where students are engaged, learning and happy? And how do you ensure that inappropriate behaviours are kept to a minimum? The second edition of Positive Learning Environments: Creating and Maintaining Productive Classrooms introduces the key concepts teachers need to know to create and maintain their classroom as a positive learning environment. It begins by introducing four essential components that are the cornerstones of creating a positive, productive learning environment. These positive practices set readers on the pathway to success and help them establish classrooms that recognise and encourage appropriate behaviours while reducing the probability of inappropriate behaviours. It then examines in turn each of the four main groups of evidence-based approaches to managing student behaviour: behavioural, cognitive behavioural, psychoeducational and social justice approaches. For each it discusses the theories that inform them, their practical applications for fostering appropriate behaviours and also when and how to use them to proactively intervene, if necessary. By the end, readers are empowered to select appropriate theories, approaches and strategies and bring these together to develop their individualised classroom management plan: one that suits their own theoretical beliefs, professional philosophy and teaching style. Premium online teaching and learning tools are available on the MindTap platform. Learn more about the online tools cengage.com.au/mindtap
This publication is the first report from the OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS). It provides quantitative, policy-relevant information on the teaching and learning environment in schools in 23 countries.
'The Impact of School Infrastructure on Learning: A Synthesis of the Evidence provides an excellent literature review of the resources that explore the areas of focus for improved student learning, particularly the aspiration for “accessible, well-built, child-centered, synergetic and fully realized learning environments.†? Written in a style which is both clear and accessible, it is a practical reference for senior government officials and professionals involved in the planning and design of educational facilities, as well as for educators and school leaders. --Yuri Belfali, Head of Division, Early Childhood and Schools, OECD Directorate for Education and Skills This is an important and welcome addition to the surprisingly small, evidence base on the impacts of school infrastructure given the capital investment involved. It will provide policy makers, practitioners, and those who are about to commission a new build with an important and comprehensive point of reference. The emphasis on safe and healthy spaces for teaching and learning is particularly welcome. --Harry Daniels, Professor of Education, Department of Education, Oxford University, UK This report offers a useful library of recent research to support the, connection between facility quality and student outcomes. At the same time, it also points to the unmet need for research to provide verifiable and reliable information on this connection. With such evidence, decisionmakers will be better positioned to accurately balance the allocation of limited resources among the multiple competing dimensions of school policy, including the construction and maintenance of the school facility. --David Lever, K-12 Facility Planner, Former Executive Director of the Interagency Committee on School Construction, Maryland Many planners and designers are seeking a succinct body of research defining both the issues surrounding the global planning of facilities as well as the educational outcomes based on the quality of the space provided. The authors have finally brought that body of evidence together in this well-structured report. The case for better educational facilities is clearly defined and resources are succinctly identified to stimulate the dialogue to come. We should all join this conversation to further the process of globally enhancing learning-environment quality! --David Schrader, AIA, Educational Facility Planner and Designer, Former Chairman of the Board of Directors, Association for Learning Environments (A4LE)
Building Powerful Learning Environments takes a close look at the trends of the Post-Digital Era through the prism of how systems of education can meet the needs of our times and offers a systemic approach to creating a different canvas for learning that aligns to these changes. At the center of the book are the concepts of a learning environment and a culture of partnerships. A learning environment has traditionally been viewed as something that educators created and sustained inside their schools. Building Powerful Learning Environments expands this understanding to embrace families, communities, other learning institutions, and businesses not as helpers, but as co-builders of a powerful learning environment. It demonstrates that schools have to take the first step in this direction by becoming the center of a new educational culture - a culture of partnerships. This book looks into various ways of creating this culture at district, school, and classroom levels. It provides practical guidance, strategies, and tips as well as some conceptual understanding of what can be done to create and support this culture at various levels of educational leadership.
This open access book contains observations, outlines, and analyses of educational robotics methodologies and activities, and developments in the field of educational robotics emerging from the findings presented at FabLearn Italy 2019, the international conference that brought together researchers, teachers, educators and practitioners to discuss the principles of Making and educational robotics in formal, non-formal and informal education. The editors’ analysis of these extended versions of papers presented at FabLearn Italy 2019 highlight the latest findings on learning models based on Making and educational robotics. The authors investigate how innovative educational tools and methodologies can support a novel, more effective and more inclusive learner-centered approach to education. The following key topics are the focus of discussion: Makerspaces and Fab Labs in schools, a maker approach to teaching and learning; laboratory teaching and the maker approach, models, methods and instruments; curricular and non-curricular robotics in formal, non-formal and informal education; social and assistive robotics in education; the effect of innovative spaces and learning environments on the innovation of teaching, good practices and pilot projects.
This book addresses main issues concerned with the future learning, learning and academic analytics, virtual world and smart user interface, and mobile learning. This book gathers the newest research results of smart learning environments from the aspects of learning, pedagogies, and technologies in learning. It examines the advances in technology development and changes in the field of education that has been affecting and reshaping the learning environment. Then, it proposes that under the changed technological situations, smart learning systems, no matter what platforms (i.e., personal computers, smart phones, and tablets) they are running at, should be aware of the preferences and needs that their users (i.e., the learners and teachers) have, be capable of providing their users with the most appropriate services, helps to enhance the users' learning experiences, and to make the learning efficient.
