The learning context - Jesús Navarro - September 8th

Why Study learning environments?

The importance of the appropriate environmental conditions for learning to take place
cannot be underestimated. The Cognitive Psychologist, Robert Sternberg, has argued
convincingly that we cannot judge the intellectual quality of any behavioral act outside of
the context in which it occurs. What may be deemed intelligent at one time and place will
by no means necessarily be the case at another.

At another level, a country’s educational system will affect the learning environment.
There are clearly vast differences between the avowed aims of the educational systems of
such countries as China, Japan, the UK and the USA.

Ecological perspectives.
In order to understand properly any person’s development, Bronfenbrenner (1979) argues
that we need to take into account their ecology, i.e. the environmental systems
surrounding them. At the closest level there is the microsystem, which contains the
developing child’s more important relationships with parents, teachers, siblings and peers.

Next comes the mesosystem within which are contained a broader range of interactions
of significant people in the developing child’s life, e.g. home-school relationships. At one
level further removed is the ecosystem where the interactions of others will have an
indirect rather than a direct effect on the learner. Finally, there is the macrosystem, which
involves the whole culture of the society in which people live.

Environmental references.
Dunn et al’s Learning Style Inventory (LSI) defines learning style in terms of four pervasive
learning conditions and 22 different elements. The four learning conditions are identified
as #1 Environmental (noise, temperature, lighting, etc…), #2 emotional (motivation,
persistence, conformity, etc.), #3 Sociological (preference for learning alone or with
others), and #4 psychological (time of day preference for learning, need for intake, etc.).

It seems highly likely that individual preferences are strongly linked to cultural
background, and that taking this into account when trying to provide the best possible
conditions for learning could well help to improve both learning achievement attitudes.

Classroom structure.

The emphasis has been upon the ways in which learning experiences have been organized
and whether one form of organization is better than another. The main debate has been
on whether learners learn better in competitive, co-operative or individualistic
environments.
An analysis of what is a common form of school and classroom organization, one of which
is largely based on competitive reward structures, makes it clear that competition is only
helpful to those who do well. The success of one person or group must always work to the
detriment of others, a situation which is exacerbated if rewards are only given for right
answers.

Ecological Perspectives mind map.

Classroom climate
Three domains were examined by the classroom environment scale – relationships, which
included feelings of involvement, affiliation, and teacher support, goal orientation, which
included task orientation and competitiveness and aspects of system maintenance and
change, such as order and organization, rule clarity, teacher control and innovation.

The greatest all-round gains are likely to be made in reading and math in classrooms that
participants feel to be warm, task-oriented and systematic and orderly. However, greater
willingness to work independently and better problem-solving skills are displayed in
flexible classroom settings that provide more exploratory materials and allow more
individual freedom.

Reference: Williams, M. & Burden R. (2005) Psychology for language teachers. CUP.