Creating a Significant Learning Environment (CSLE) is a complex approach to education that involves a holistic view of learning to include all aspects of the learning environment. Throughout this course, we were challenged to evaluate student-centered digital learning environments and dictate our own learning philosophies. We were asked to look at all situational factors that may impact our student’s learning and address this in our plans to create the most impactful learning environment possible. As always, we were challenged to utilize the growth mindset to effectively implement change within our organization. On this page, you will find all of my work to create my most significant learning environment possible.
Creating My Significant Learning Environment
I have just finished my first-year teaching. I can tell you; it was nothing like I had expected. There were many challenges I was completely unprepared for. If it weren’t for the support of my school administration and the advice of my learning community, my year would have gone much differently. There was a huge learning curve for me, and I probably learned more than my students. I have been reflecting on my own learning environment and the ways that it allowed me to grow and learn in the most effective but most intense thrown into the deep end way. I feel like I can take from my own learning environment and apply it to my classroom. I recognize that learning never stops and emulating an environment in my classroom that is like real world experiences will result in the most long-term learning. [Read More…]
Learning Philosophy
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”
Confucius
This well known quote by Confucius is often referenced in education. Interestingly enough, this quote is deeply engrained in the philosophies of both my school and in my ADL coursework. I found it quite interesting that both of my organizations were so struck by the same quote. I too find myself thinking back to this quote when designing lessons in my classroom. Before there was even a word for it, Confucius defined what we now know today as constructivism. This is the idea that learning is active. The learner is using their own ideas and experiences to build on and create their own learning environment. New ideas are connected to old experiences and this is what helps a student to learn and generate knowledge. As many of you following along know, I have just finished my first year of teaching and have not studied education before starting the year. So I was left with a lot to learn. Without even knowing it, I already had constructivism built into my classroom. In fact, my classroom is almost founded on the ideas of constructivism. I firmly believed that through experience is how we truly learn. In my classroom, I incorperate this idea through hands on experiments, engineering based warm-ups, and project based learning. [Read more…]
To Learn More
Planning for Significant Learning Environment
Course Goal: BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) Learners will integrate a blended learning, station rotation model into their classroom curriculum.
The following is a plan for a professional learning opportunity for integrating blended learning into classroom curriculum for grades K-8. Learners will be teachers being asked to create a blended learning curriculum for their class curricula.
| Learning Goals | Learning Activities | Assessment Activities |
| Foundational Learners will examine, analyze and apply characteristics of an authentic learning environment. Learners will discover how blended learning can positively impact a student’s voice and learning. Learners will be exposed to online resources that can be used to implement blended learning. | -Discuss what is already known -Watch Monique Markoff at TEDxIthacaCollege – Discuss new ideas and new perceptions | Discussion and participation. |
| Application Learners will evaluate current learning environments and establish the realistic goals for change. Learners will create their own timeline and goals for their classroom based on subject and age. | – Discussion – Show example of realistic timeline – Teachers are given time to reflect on how blended learning will impact their class – Learners are given template to develop their own timeline specific to their classroom. | – Finished timeline (draft) – Teacher engagement – Discussion |
| Integration Stage Learners will plan and design one unit based around blended-learning for the fall trimester. This plan will emphasize student responsibility and give them a chance to take ownership of their learning. | – Choose a unit that is suitable for an introduction to blended learning – Begin a draft outline on how to use blended learning in that unit – Identify online resources that will be useful | – Finished draft outline – Reasonable amount of sources identified for unit effectiveness – Teacher engagement and discussion |
| Human Dimensions/Caring Learners reflect on how implementing blended learning into the classroom has changed classroom culture, promoted the growth mindset, and encouraged confidence. Learners will collaborate to solve problems and share effective resources and tools. | – Discussion based – Teachers give feedback and offer solutions – Teachers are able to solve their problems and help others | – Teacher engagement and discussion – Self reflection survey |
| Learning How to Learn Teachers will engage in independent research of new resources and data to help implement a blended learning style into their classroom. Learners will use information given to them and their own research to implement blended learning fully into their curriculum. | – Time offered for teachers to build their own knowledge – Self- lead research and integration | – Measured through teacher engagement and implementation of blended learning – Teachers use blended learning in their classroom once in the first trimester (at least), and increasingly thereafter. |
Understanding By Design
Using Wiggins & McTighe’s (2005) Understanding By Design Model, I have designed the following professional learning for the implementation of blended learning into the curriculum of Kuleana Education. The lesson will be a day long professional development at the beginning of the 2021-22 school year. The learners/ participants will be teachers who are being asked to use a blended learning station rotation model in their K-8 curriculum.
Growth Mindset Plan
(Revisited)
At the beginning of my Journey of Learning, I took an entire course on the Growth Mindset where I would reflect on the importance of mindset and mentality when it comes to growth. I was asked to create a Growth Mindset Plan that would share my knowledge and findings with colleagues and students to encourage them to adopt a growth mindset as well. Now I am being asked to revisit my plan and incorperate new knowledge into a revised and refined version. [Read More…]
Connecting the Dots: My Innovation Plan
Throughout all of my work in ADL, my number one goal and my BHAG, is my Innovation Plan. This is how I plan to create meaningful chaneg within my organization. Through my innovation plan, I hope to implement blended learning into my school’s K-8 curriculum. In order to accomplish this Big Hairy Audacious Goal, many steps need to be taken and have been taken to accomplish this throughout my school and while timelines and ideas have changed, the main point is the same. In order to get this done, I needed the support and help of my fellow teachers and administration. That is where the professional learning comes in. By involving the staff and educating them on the growth mindset and the benefits of blended learning, I can begin to create change. By including the growth mindset into my classroom culture, my students will be more involved as well. By utilizing a blended learning station rotation model, I am actually encouraging the growth mindset since students are offered another new opportunity to learn differently and show what they know using technology.
References
Chang School & Bates, T. (2015, December 14). Dr. Tony Bates on Building Effective Learning Environments [Video]. YouTube.https://www.youtube.com/embed/3xD_sLNGurA?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent
Dwayne Harapnuik. (2015, May 9). Creating Significant Learning Environments (CSLE) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ-c7rz7eT4
Fink, L.D. (2003). A self-directed guide to designing courses for significant learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Grit: the power of passion and perseverance | Angela Lee Duckworth – YouTube. (n.d.). Retrieved July 24, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H14bBuluwB8
The power of believing that you can improve | Carol Dweck – YouTube. (n.d.). Retrieved July 24, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X0mgOOSpLU
Sisk, V. F., Burgoyne, A. P., Sun, J., Butler, J. L., & Macnamara, B. N. (2018). To What Extent and Under Which Circumstances Are Growth Mind-Sets Important to Academic Achievement? Two Meta-Analyses. Psychological Science, 29(4), 549–571. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617739704
TEDx Talks & Thomas, D. (2012, September 13). A New Culture of Learning, Douglas Thomas at TEDxUFM [Video]. YouTube.https://www.youtube.com/embed/lM80GXlyX0U?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent
TEDxTalks. (2014, May 6). Click here– blended learning and the future of education: Monique Markoff at TEDxIthacaCollege. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb2d8E1dZjY.
Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2011). A new culture of learning: Cultivating the imagination for aworld of constant change (1st ed.). CreateSpace Independent Pub
Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (expanded second ed.). Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Journey of Learning 