5 CHARACTERISTICS OF AN IMPACTFUL LEARNING ATMOSPHERE

The process of learning and seeking knowledge follows a person through the grave. It is everything that motivates an individual to go the extra mile and absorb all the knowledge from the surroundings. The system of education goes far beyond the conventional approaches.

A learning process is not confined to the content and teaching techniques. The surroundings play a huge role as well. The more supportive and positive a learning environment is, the more it’ll encourage the students to learn better. A positive learning environment helps a child turn the process of education into a pleasurable one.

What do we mean when we say a positive learning environment? It’s where a child is at ease, feels safe (emotionally and mentally), asks questions, and feels encouraged to tackle everyday problems with ease. It’s an environment where the student has a nurturing relationship with his teachers and peers and believes in himself to be successful.

Keeping the best American and British curriculum schools in Dubai, we have assembled a list of 5 characteristics of an impactful learning atmosphere:

Take the best of everything

The key to keeping a lesson plan effective and relevant is to not depend on a single source of information. The threads of the learning knitwear, be it lessons, projects, test materials, or reading, it should all originate from different resources.

If the entire material plan is taken from the same source, the lesson is bound to get whisked away in a single direction. The process of learning should always be unbiased and multi-dimensional, providing the child with the resources to study and form their own opinions that are not influenced by an outside source.

Learning That Follows Into Real world

Providing straightforward facts and reflections through the learning process is just the first step. It should lead to a radical repackaging of the information provided to fit the real world. 

In simpler words, instead of letting a child’s mind decide the applications and implications of all the abstract information they received to understand the world outside school, a lesson plan should be equipped to take care of it. 

A good learning environment lets the child process the information he was delivered and reprocess it to understand the real world. A child is not going to stay in the confines of the school; a lesson plan shouldn’t either!

Encourage the act of questioning

Many researchers have presented the effect of curiosity and its link with the learning process over time. The more inquisitive a child is towards the material, the better chance he has at grasping the concepts. 

Although teachers often ask the students to inquire anything they’d like to know at the end of a lesson, it rarely leads to fruitful results. Even if it does, the questions brought forward by the students are fundamental in nature, with no clear understanding of the information provided. 

A good learning environment creates the safe space for children where they feel encouraged to make inquiries, and be curious. The more in-depth questions they raise, the better chance they have of truly understanding the information presented.

Various teaching techniques

A single classroom holds students from various walks of life, with different socio-economic backgrounds, culture, and individual credibility. Each student is different from the other, in the way that they process information and make inquiries. It gets even more diverse in a city like Dubai that welcomes families from over 200 nations.

To tackle this diversity without damaging their self-image, a teaching instructor should deliver through a variety of teaching approaches. The possibilities are innumerable, and an effective teacher knows which technique works best for a particular lesson plan.

Authentic and Non-Punitive Assessment

A good learning environment does not depend upon age-old concepts of assessment tests and exams to determine a student’s credibility.

The testing methods should be refined enough to provide authentic assessments that do not separate good thinkers from good students. The evaluation is based more on the tone of the classroom experience as a whole rather than the format of the test. In simpler words, a student’s assessment is better judged from the feedback he receives rather than the grade he got.

Take away notes

A school’s overall rating in a report based on their student’s results does not determine their effectiveness to deliver the knowledge across.

The decision of whether to opt for an International school or a British curriculum school in Dubai should also weigh in the learning environment they are creating for their students. In the end, it is what shapes a child’s personality as a whole; not the information they received, but how they could mould it to apply to the real world!