As an educator, I believed that I was doing my best to attain a positive and beneficial environment for my students.  In the past, my goal was to incorporate Social Emotional Learning and make sure to have intentful, hands on lessons for my students.  During my time in this course, Creating Significant Learning Environments, I learned that although it was a start, I could be doing more purposeful, learner centered activities while still ensuring the standards are being met.  

What is a Significant Learning Environment?

My journey first began learning about what a significant learning environment is through reading A New Culture of Learning (Thomas & Brown, 2011).  I began to understand that the environment of a traditional classroom must change in order to prepare students for the future.  Although my intentions were good, I was not maximizing the learning to encourage student interest and realistic transfers from the classroom to the world.  I realized that my role as a teacher must change from a person who “teaches” to my audience to a facilitator who guides their learning.  Additionally, the focus of the learner should not be a standardized test, but instead, their ability to inquire, explore and be accountable to increase their own knowledge.  This will in turn begin the willingness of learning beyond the classroom setting.  

A Teacher's Learning Philosophy

After understanding the purpose of a student centered learning environment, I began the process of understanding my own learning philosophy.  Teaching is a calling and a profession, however, at the root of all that I do, I am constantly learning.  In order to better find my way in the world of learning, I had to decide what kind of learner I was.  From this deep dive, I resonated most with the Humanism theory coupled with the Constructivist theory.  As an advocate of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and seeing the benefits of positive relationships in the classroom, it was natural for me to identify with this theory.  The constructivist theory on the other hand, is student centered and focuses on the discovery of learning where the student is the captain of the ship.  She will benefit most when learning is relevant and using problem solving to find solutions to real problems.  

Planning and Designing for Learners

Next, came something all too familiar - planning.  Understanding how I learn and the environments in which my students can grow helped me better understand how to prepare an outcomes based blueprint for a unit in their standards based education.  Using Daniel Fink's Self-Directed Guide to Designing Courses for Significant Learning (2003), I created a 3 Column Table by first considering the goals and situational factors that could affect the delivery of the course.  We also used a more competency based approach referred to as the UbD approach or, Understanding by Design.  With UbD, the goal during planning is to ensure that the audience understands the information in the best way possible.  Understand, in this design, is a broad term and the planner decides at what capacity the understanding should be (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005).  In the end, the planner must decide which forms of assessment and demonstrations of knowledge students will complete following a “WHERETO” process.  This process confirms that the chosen activities are aligned with the goals of the course so that understanding is demonstrated accurately by the student.  

Growth Mindset Revisited

As a final step, I revisited my growth mindset which was created in an earlier DLL course.  In my follow up, I learned that I should expand on my knowledge of the growth mindset and how it personally applies to my journey.  I also considered how to encourage this way of thought in my students using the 4 action steps suggested by Dr. Carol Dweck (2006).  I began to realize that when training my students, there will be important focuses in creating a growth minded environment.  Judgement of self and of others are unacceptable;  Grades and assessments, although required, are not the end of the learning journey.  “Yet” will always be in our future and attaining goals will come.