The Principles of Learning to Design Learning Environments

The OECD Handbook for Innovative Learning Environments

DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264277274-5-en

A recent study by OECD (June 2017) on Innovative Learning  Environments focus on four areas:

• The principles of learning to design learning environments
• The OECD “7+3” framework for innovative learning environments
• Learning leadership and evaluative thinking
• Transformation and change in learning ecosystems

The full report can be  explored here

The Principles of Learning to Design Learning Environments

DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264277274-5-en

The first section on The principles of learning to design learning environments focus on a set of principles and tools. The principles maintain that learning environments should:

• make learning and engagement central
• ensure that it is understood as social
• be highly attuned to learners emotions
• reflect individual  differences
• be demanding for all while avoiding overload
• use broad assessments and feedback
• promote horizontal connections

The seven principles are:

1. The learning environment recognizes the learners as its core participants, encourages their active engagement, and develops in them an understanding of their own activity as learners.
2. The learning environment is founded on the social nature  of learning and actively encourages well-organized co-operative learners.
3. The  learning professionals within the learning environment are highly attuned to the learners motivation, and the key role of emotion in achievement.
4. The learning environment is acutely sensitive to the individual differences among the learners in it, including their prior knowledge.
5. The learning environment devises programmes that demand hard work and challenge from all without extensive overload.
6. The learning environment operates with clarity of expectations and deploys assessment strategies consistent with these expectations; there is a strong emphasis on formative feedback to support learning.
7. The learning environment strongly promotes  "horizontal connections" across areas of knowledge, and subjects as well as to the community and the wider world.

According to the Director for Education and Skills, OECD Andreas Schleicher emphasize 

from the study:

...If there has been one lesson learnt about innovating education, it is that teachers, schools and local administrators should not just be involved in the implementation of educational change but they should  have a central role in its design. 

The tools presented are

Tool 1.1 gets learning environments to interrogate how well they are organised so as to optimise young people’s learning, using either a relatively rapid scan or more profound review. 

Tool 1.2 builds on the Learning Principles through a Spiral of Inquiry as developed in British Columbia, Canada. 

Tool 1.3 puts learners centre stage by getting schools to juxtapose the perceptions of staff with the views of learners themselves. 

Tool 1.4 recasts the Learning Principles so that they are focused on the educators, leading to the identification of priorities and strategies for action.

OECD (2017). "The principles of learning to design learning environments". In The OECD handbook for Innovative learning environments. OECD Publishing, Paris.

DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264277274-en