The Four Cornerstones of an Affective Learning Environment
(How People Learn, 1999, National Academy Press)
Learner Centered
Knowledge Centered
Assessment Centered
Community Centered
Learner Centered
What does the learner bring to the learning setting? These may be beliefs, cultural background, or knowledge of the academic content. This is what new information needs to be connected to.
Learners use current knowledge to construct new knowledge and what they know and believe at the moment affects how they will interpret new information.
Current knowledge can help or hamper learning.
Teachers have a harder time in using the learner’s background because they are not familiar with it. A teacher must make an effort to learn about their students’ backgrounds if they are to effectively connect to their prior knowledge.
Knowledge Centered
Instruction that focuses on how to help students use their current knowledge and skills to think and solve problems.
How do we help students learn and understand new knowledge verses learning a set of disconnected facts and skills?
Too much information in the curricula may result in developing disconnected facts or skills rather than connected knowledge.
Assessment Centered
- Feedback is fundamental to learning—it may be the most powerful part of the learning experience.
- Students need opportunities for formative assessment that allow for revision and improvement of the quality of their thinking and understanding.
- If the learning goal is to enhance understanding and applicability of knowledge, it is not sufficient to provide assessments that focus primarily on memorizing facts and formulas.
Community Centered
The learning environment must promote a sense of community.
Most activities outside of school are based in community settings, homes, clubs, teams, etc.
A community allows more opportunity for motivation, interaction, and feedback.
A Shift in the Meaning of Effective Learning
As a result of the research from the past 30 years, the views of effective learning have shifted from the benefits of drill and practice to a focus on students’ understanding and application of knowledge.
(How People Learn, 2000, page xi)
Research on expertise in areas such as chess, history, science, and mathematics demonstrate that the experts’ ability to think and solve problems depend strongly on a rich body of knowledge about the subject matter.
(e.g. Chase and Simon, 1973, Chi et al., 1981; deGroot, 1965).
However, the research also shows clearly that "usable knowledge" is not the same as a mere list of disconnected facts. The experts’ knowledge is connected and organized around important concepts. It is "conditionalized" to specify the contexts in which it is applicable; it supports understanding and transfer to other contexts rather than only the ability to remember.
(How People Learn, 2000, page 9)