Any teacher knows there are many factors which contribute to the learning environment in their classrooms. Over and over again, we hear about how we need “positive” learning environments and need students to feel safe while learning. While this is valuable, we also need to make sure we are creating significant learning environments for our students. To do this, we can look into how to create a classroom culture that cultivates imagination and passion. The success of the Innovation Plan, Blended Learning for Bearcats, relies on students having a classroom environment in which they can be creative, take ownership of their learning and flourish.
Many teachers would argue that this year in education has entirely relied upon using technology to successfully and safely teach students. However, we need to carefully curate and choose which resources to use so there is a learning-based approach, rather than teaching-based approach. The teacher cannot be the focus of our classrooms. With a learning-based approach, students are being given the tools they need to learn how to not only learn, but how to love learning. Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown write how:
“learning should be viewed in terms of an environment- combined with the rich resources provided by the digital information network- where the context in which learning happens, the boundaries that define it and the students, teachers, and information within it all coexist and shape each other in mutually reinforcing ways” (2011, p.35).
As teachers, we must think about how students have access to digital information networks and how it changes the way students view learning. Students need to be engaged, and interested in their learning or else our students will turn toward their resources to find answers. So often students as teachers, “Why do I even have to know this?”, and when this happens, teachers are reminded of the value of meaningful, real-world activities that allow students to make connections.
One of the biggest challenges of implementing engaging, fun and exciting lessons within the blended-learning context is how it requires teachers to have access to be very creative or to find the right resources. As a math teacher, Robert Kaplinsky and his mathematics problem-based lesson search engine has proved to be a great resource. As the innovation plan is adopted and blended learning is spread throughout the middle school, providing teachers with resources will be a necessity.
Within the blended learning innovation plan prior to breaking out into the station-rotation model, engaging, problem-based introductory lessons are used to start off each unit. In the problem-based lessons, students are introduced to different real-world problems. It is fascinating to see how engaged and interested students get while struggling productively to find a solution. The frequently sought-after collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking often ooze out of students once they are given engaging, fun and exciting problems to solve.
The power of collaboration within the context of education is evidenced in research. When college students participate in study groups, their success is dramatically increased in the classroom (Thomas & Brown, 2011, p. 67). Thankfully, virtual study-groups are also not to be overlooked as an option, as studies have shown that they also work (Thomas & Brown, 2011, p. 67). Working and collaborating in groups on the engaging, real-world problem-based portion of the lesson supports students in learning by doing. Students are given problems that they have not yet learned the new content, however, they are able to make connections to prior knowledge to find the new knowledge which is needed.
“Students learn best when they are able to follow their passion and operate within the constraints of a bounded environment” (Thomas & Brown, 2011, p. 79). The inquiry process pushes learners to ask “‘What are the things that we don’t know, and what questions can we ask about them?’” (Thomas & Brown, 2011, p. 82). In the math classroom, so much learning happens when students ask other students questions while collaborating.
In discussion with other educators regarding the pros and cons of blended learning, frequently it is brought up how the models of blended learning, such as flipping the classroom or even the station-rotation model, do not necessarily require fun and engaging lessons. Within the blended-learning innovation plan, there must be a carefully curated balance between imagination, play, and learning through collaboration. Students need engaging and interesting problems to help them understand the “why” behind the learning.
There have been several arguments that students who are naturally comfortable with math will excel in the blended learning environment, but that students who are not motivated to learn might be left behind if the entire system focuses on students’ motivation in determining their pacing. However, providing engaging problem-based lessons at the start of each unit will help ensure that students are engaged and are utilizing their imagination while playing with their knowledge of math. Once students adopt this mindset, their learning will truly be their own and they will be thirsty for more knowledge.
As teachers select problems to give students, we must try to find ways to embrace the power of “play” in the classroom. “Play reveals a structure of learning that is radically different from the one that most schools or other formal learning environments provide, and which is well suited to the notions of a world in constant flux” (Thomas & Brown, 2011, p. 97). With play, the learning is not powered by being logical, but rather by an imaginative manner of processing ideas and feeling (Thomas& Brown, 2011, p. 99). Frequently, teachers have seen how gamification in the classroom can provide excitement and engagement with learning. The challenge of getting students to find the actual content itself fun and game-like will be a wonderful byproduct of using real world problem-based lessons.
Shifting the perspective of educators from an industrial education mindset to the new culture of learning Thomas and Brown speak about in A New Culture of Learning will require an acceptance of how the internet is here to stay and students are living in a digital world where answers are available at their fingertips. Teachers need to rethink their ways of teaching in order to promote learning that is not plagued by cheating. No longer can educators focus only on the cheating, but rather on the whole system that has been created that promotes the answer-finding culture.
“In a world of near-constant flux, play becomes a strategy for embracing change, rather than a way for growing out of it” (Thomas & Brown, 2011, p. 48). In the digital age we live in, we must accept that the 21st-century is going to provide different opportunities for our learners than we had in the 20th-century. As teachers, our learning philosophies must be modified and the way we carry out teaching in the classroom through our lessons will indubitably be affected.
We are in a digital world, and as such, students will continue their learning throughout their life by doing. In order to unleash the new culture of learning, utilizing play and imagination in a state of “near-constant change and flux” is key (Thomas & Brown, 2011, p. 118). As teachers, once we begin to care more about experimenting, playing and the power of asking questions more than outcomes and answers, we will cultivate the imagination of our students (Thomas & Brown, 2011, p. 118).
Readjusting the perspective of an organization to emphasize play and imagination will at first appear childish to some people, however the learning that will occur in the classrooms which promote imagination and play will speak for itself. If this is done correctly within an organization, cheating will become less prevalent and the passion for learning will be evident. After all, “where imaginations play, learning happens” (Thomas & Brown, 2011, p. 118).
Resources
Kaplinsky, R. (2020, October 20). Problem-Based Lesson Search Engine. Robert Kaplinsky. https://robertkaplinsky.com/prbl-search-engine/.
Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2011). A new culture of learning: cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change.
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