Voices in Urban Education
Archives
Learning Environments
VUE Number 19, Spring 2008
| VUE Home | Archives | Order Print Copy |
Learning in Context:
The Importance of Learning Environments
By Robert Rothman
Robert Rothman is a Principal Associate & Editor of VUE at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform.
> Author's bio
In a recent speech, Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, New York City’s teachers union, outlined a plan for rating schools and holding them accountable for improvement. Under Weingarten’s plan — an alternative to the system developed by the city’s department of education — schools would be judged along several dimensions, not just test scores.
One dimension on which schools would be rated would be the quality of the learning environment. As Weingarten put it in her speech of March 13, 2008, “A safe, secure environment is a threshold issue for any school and it is indispensable if teachers and students are to focus on what is important — teaching and learning. Kids tell me this all the time — they are scared of being bullied, and they need the adults to help create an atmosphere where they feel safe.”
Weingarten’s proposal was a recognition — rare in this era of test-based accountability — that learning takes place in a context. If students and schools are to be held accountable for learning, then educators and public officials ought to be held accountable for establishing the conditions that make effective learning possible.
Safety and security are important aspects of an effective learning environment, but they are not the only ones. The physical environment is critical too. At the most basic level, this means that schools that are clean and where pipes don't leak are more conducive to learning than schools in decrepit conditions. It also means that facilities necessary for learning, such as science laboratories, libraries, and computers, need to be adequate as well. And it means that schools need to be designed in ways that are welcoming to students and that create spaces where students want to be and want to learn.
School cultures also contribute to the learning environment. The extent to which adults hold high expectations for students and create supports necessary for students to succeed are vital to student learning. These supports, moreover, include the availability of learning resources in the time students are out of school — such as partnerships with cultural institutions and after-school programs. They also include expectations and supports for adult learning; schools in which teachers and leaders themselves are continually learning are effective in improving student learning.
This issue of Voices in Urban Education examines learning environments from a variety of perspectives. The articles look at various ways that schools and their partners make effective learning possible — or impede it.
Judith Johnson defines an effective learning environment and considers ways that district leaders and partners can create and support such environments in schools.
> Excerpt
Prakash Nair and Annalise Gehling consider the uninviting ways most schools are designed and outline innovative designs that foster student motivation and learning.
> Excerpt
Kathleen Nolan describes a school in which a policy of imposing order ended up criminalizing misbehavior and failed to enhance the learning environment.
> Excerpt
John Beam, Chase Madar, and Deinya Phenix show vivid examples of schools that have been successful in improving safety and discipline without punitive measures.
> Excerpt
Carol Ascher and Cindy Maguire outline the characteristics of high schools that have “beaten the odds” and succeeded in improving graduation and college-going rates.
> Full text
These articles make clear that learning is more than simply the interaction between a teacher and student, and that the conditions in which learning takes place have a huge effect on that interaction. And many actors outside of schools are responsible for creating and maintaining those conditions.
Weingarten’s proposal is a bold attempt to hold policy-makers accountable for their role in establishing adequate and equitable learning environments. If her proposal were approved, it would signal a sea change in how Americans view accountability. In the early days of the standards-based reform movement, the idea of establishing standards for students’ opportunity to learn, in addition to their performance, got shot down in Congress. At the time, critics, including governors, contended that schools should be accountable solely for student outcomes, not inputs.
Perhaps policy-makers are ready to consider the idea that the conditions in which students learn produce outcomes, and that closing the achievement gap requires equitable learning environments. That would be a most welcome development.
Archives
Learning Environments
VUE Number 19, Spring 2008
| VUE Home | Archives | Order Print Copy |
Learning in Context:
The Importance of Learning Environments
By Robert Rothman
Robert Rothman is a Principal Associate & Editor of VUE at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform.
> Author's bio
In a recent speech, Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, New York City’s teachers union, outlined a plan for rating schools and holding them accountable for improvement. Under Weingarten’s plan — an alternative to the system developed by the city’s department of education — schools would be judged along several dimensions, not just test scores.
One dimension on which schools would be rated would be the quality of the learning environment. As Weingarten put it in her speech of March 13, 2008, “A safe, secure environment is a threshold issue for any school and it is indispensable if teachers and students are to focus on what is important — teaching and learning. Kids tell me this all the time — they are scared of being bullied, and they need the adults to help create an atmosphere where they feel safe.”
Weingarten’s proposal was a recognition — rare in this era of test-based accountability — that learning takes place in a context. If students and schools are to be held accountable for learning, then educators and public officials ought to be held accountable for establishing the conditions that make effective learning possible.
Safety and security are important aspects of an effective learning environment, but they are not the only ones. The physical environment is critical too. At the most basic level, this means that schools that are clean and where pipes don't leak are more conducive to learning than schools in decrepit conditions. It also means that facilities necessary for learning, such as science laboratories, libraries, and computers, need to be adequate as well. And it means that schools need to be designed in ways that are welcoming to students and that create spaces where students want to be and want to learn.
School cultures also contribute to the learning environment. The extent to which adults hold high expectations for students and create supports necessary for students to succeed are vital to student learning. These supports, moreover, include the availability of learning resources in the time students are out of school — such as partnerships with cultural institutions and after-school programs. They also include expectations and supports for adult learning; schools in which teachers and leaders themselves are continually learning are effective in improving student learning.
This issue of Voices in Urban Education examines learning environments from a variety of perspectives. The articles look at various ways that schools and their partners make effective learning possible — or impede it.
Judith Johnson defines an effective learning environment and considers ways that district leaders and partners can create and support such environments in schools.
> Excerpt
Prakash Nair and Annalise Gehling consider the uninviting ways most schools are designed and outline innovative designs that foster student motivation and learning.
> Excerpt
Kathleen Nolan describes a school in which a policy of imposing order ended up criminalizing misbehavior and failed to enhance the learning environment.
> Excerpt
John Beam, Chase Madar, and Deinya Phenix show vivid examples of schools that have been successful in improving safety and discipline without punitive measures.
> Excerpt
Carol Ascher and Cindy Maguire outline the characteristics of high schools that have “beaten the odds” and succeeded in improving graduation and college-going rates.
> Full text
These articles make clear that learning is more than simply the interaction between a teacher and student, and that the conditions in which learning takes place have a huge effect on that interaction. And many actors outside of schools are responsible for creating and maintaining those conditions.
Weingarten’s proposal is a bold attempt to hold policy-makers accountable for their role in establishing adequate and equitable learning environments. If her proposal were approved, it would signal a sea change in how Americans view accountability. In the early days of the standards-based reform movement, the idea of establishing standards for students’ opportunity to learn, in addition to their performance, got shot down in Congress. At the time, critics, including governors, contended that schools should be accountable solely for student outcomes, not inputs.
Perhaps policy-makers are ready to consider the idea that the conditions in which students learn produce outcomes, and that closing the achievement gap requires equitable learning environments. That would be a most welcome development.
© all material AISR