Learning Culture

Think About

How are successful learning cultures created and sustained?
How do we foster curiosity and a growth mindset?
Are we all co-learners in our learning communities?
Are we models of lifelong learning?

“...the learning process is one which engenders and reinforces wanting to learn more. Absent [students] wanting to learn, the learning context is unproductive.”

Seymour B. Sarason

Learning cultures should foster curiosity, establish empathy amongst learners, and encourage lifelong learning. They promote a growth mindset, create safe spaces, and facilitate co-learning. These dynamic cultures encourage and facilitate opportunities for purposeful risk-taking and agency in the learning process, while fostering a questioning disposition. The creation of a sustainable learning culture requires a unified commitment from classrooms, schools and the system as a whole.

How are successful learning cultures created and sustained?

Look Fors:

✅I establish and model a passion for learning within my learning environment and personalised learning network

✅I create a climate in which students strive towards the goal of mastery or proficiency of skills and subject material rather than obtaining grades

✅I celebrate and encourage curiosity and model inquiry through the development of questions

✅I encourage purposeful risk taking in the investigatory stages of inquiry

✅I develop resilience in my learners by providing timely, purposeful and descriptive feedback

✅I foster a growth mindset and encourage continual reflection and discussion about each learner’s learning process

✅I create a learning culture built on trust that is safe and inclusive, in which all learners feel included, respected, comfortable and heard

✅I model advocacy for equity, inclusion and empathy

✅I empower students to shape their learning in an impactful way through exercising voice and choice

✅I create a learning culture where all learners in the classroom learn with and from each other

Additional Resources

Use this sketchnote as an entry point for learners as they begin to explore Learning Cultures. A possible activity is to have them see what they:

See
Think
Wonder

Learning Culture

Getting Started

Diving Deeper

Innovating in the Element

Think About

Look Fors:

Additional Resources

Peel District School Board

Ministry of Education

George Couros

Other Great Resources