Creating a High-Performance Learning Environment

All teachers want their classrooms to be engines of learning where students feel inspired to focus, think, and participate and know that they are expected to perform. There are many ways to create this kind of high-performance learning environment, from changing the way your room looks to rethinking your class structure. Let’s look at a few ideas and options to get started.

For this activity, which is focused on creating high performance learning environments, we watched three videos that present different teaching approaches.

First video: Roller Coaster Physics (STEM in Action)

Ms. Migdo who is teaching STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) lessons has used the Project-Based Learning (PBL) which has collaborative projects that integrate various subjects within the curriculum.

I believe that new technology and changing pedagogies are influencing how to best teach a generation of learners who have never known a world without smartphones or tablets. We must become partners in creating the dynamic science teaching facilities required for undergraduate STEM education. By understanding today’s students and setting high academic/behavior expectations and envisioning how learning will continue to evolve, we can shape the structures and spaces that support new teaching methods and evolving educational missions.

Academic & Behavior Expectations:

Ms. Migdo holds high performance and behavior expectations for her students; by bringing real-life context and technology to the curriculum through a PBL approach, students are encouraged to become independent workers, critical thinkers, and lifelong learners.

PBL is not just a way of learning; it's a way of working together. If students learn to take responsibility for their own learning, they will form the basis for the way they will work with others in their adult lives.

As we know solving highly complex problems requires that students have both fundamental skills (reading, writing, and math) and 21st century skills (teamwork, problem solving, research gathering, time management, information synthesizing, utilizing high tech tools). With this combination of skills, students can manage their learning process, guided and mentored by a skilled teacher.

21st century skills expectations that Ms. Migdo succeed to set for her students include:

• personal and social responsibility
• planning, critical thinking, reasoning, and creativity
• strong communication skills, both for interpersonal and presentation needs
• cross-cultural understanding
• visualizing and decision making
• knowing how and when to use technology and choosing the most appropriate tool for the task

Norms and Procedures:

Establishing norms isn't about providing a set of rules; rather, the goal is to work together.

It was clear that Ms. Migdo used many Norms and procedures include:

• Discussing open-ended questions, providing time and space to explore questions together.
• Practicing brainstorming and setting goals.
• Developing routines for storing work-in-progress and procedures for check-ins to monitor progress.
• Asking students to provide feedback and share their ideas

It was evident that Ms. Migdo likes the group work even with the sketching design which gave the students an opportunity to be involved in the what is engineering design process about, she wanted her students to show the science they know and sharing their ideas, have students to do eam building and collaboration. 

Second video: 3rd Grade Chinese Math Class & an article describing how math instruction is delivered in China.

A good way to look at it, is what are the Chinese doing different that makes them better in math.. I would say there are some fundamental differences which makes China score better in math than any other country.

What I have found that Chinese students have math classes since first year in primary school. They start from very early age, combined with a lot of practices ranging from easy to hard. Gradually, the basic math skills have been rooted in their minds. And later more advanced classes of math will be given in middle school and high school. Briefly, it's just practice makes perfect. But as the same time, I think that Chinese students do not have much time to do creative and fun things in primary school.

Academic & Behavior Expectations:

It was evident that Teachers/Chinese curriculum hold high expectations for their students.

Many studies show that Chinese parents and students seem to have positive attitudes toward education. Chinese parents place greater emphasis on the importance of self-improvement, set higher standards/expectations and more often help their children. This study show how parents expectations and attitudes are strongly related to their children attitude and performance.

Teachers, school system/Chinese curriculum and parents encourage their children to work effectively and nurture curiosity, and confidence that gave the chance to highly perform internationally.

Norms and Procedures:

I am impressed by the procedure that has been used in memorizing things like multiplication tables or mathematical formulas and the flow of the lesson.

Many studies have shown that Chinese educators spend a lot of time focusing on the group; The Chinese teach their children to work as team and this applies to the classroom as well. A collaborative learning experience is taught in the Chinese education system.

Whole classroom instructions strategy has been used effectively to keep all students engaged in the material and prompting feedback. And when students understand whole concepts of math, allowing them to apply previous knowledge to help them learn new topics.  

This is different to other education model teaching of math, which is more focused on small groups and individual attention.

Third video: Whole Brain Teaching (WBT) Strategy

Researchers have recently discovered that teaching strategies that use whole brain learning is an efficient and effective learning strategy that helps kids (parents and teachers, too) learn anything easily without struggling.

One feature of teaching strategies using whole brain learning involves using both the right side and the left side of the brain. Although nobody is just left brain or just right brain, most of us have a dominance

In this video the class responded positively and I think it's pretty good, but it requires to totally change the way I think about teaching.

Academic & Behavior Expectations:

Teachers hold high performance and behavior expectations for their students, they seemed to be enjoying the lesson we can emphasize by using WBT that no more boring lessons will be given. It seemed to be more engaging. I like that students are able to interact with each other while they study. I think that this will lead to more collaborative and active learning environment.

Students seemed to respond to challenges, enjoyed well-­designed learning activities, and they could make in the proper setting educational progress.

Norms and Procedures:

In this strategy and from the videos that we have watched; WBT includes important steps:

• First one: Class Yes, When teachers wanted their students’ attention, teachers said “Class! Class! Class!,” students answered,“Yes! Yes! Yes"! So students quickly learned, and happily responded to. So Whenever teachers need a burst of merry attention, surprise their students with a new, Class-Yes routine.
• Second step: Engager mirror words when teachers said, “Mirror words!” and hold up their hands. The students responded, “Mirror words!” and picked up their hands. The teachers spoke slowly and made gestures illustrating the lesson. The students repeated their words and mimic teacher's gestures. Mirror lessons involve seeing, moving, hearing and speaking.
• Third step: Hands and eyes; Teachers have a large point that requires their students’ intense attention. With a loud, firm voice teachers said, “Hands and eyes!”  Quickly folded hands. Students replied, “Hands and eyes!” and quickly folded their hands. This is helpful especially for important announcements.
• Fourth step: One Minute Lesson; “The longer we talk, and the more details we cover, the more students we lose". Talking for 60 seconds, which was a fairly long time actually, only about one topic. A core Whole Brain Teaching strategy, begin with one minute on the question; then in the next chunk, teachers have mentioned the question and talked at more length about the answer; in the next chunk,  They briefly mentioned the question and answered and then talked at more length about an example of the answer.
• Fifth step: Teach okay; when students taught each other using giant gestures and explained a specific topic from the lesson. Teachers (clapped twice) and said "Teach"! then students (clapped twice) and taught their neighbors about a specific topic from the lesson.

Setting High Expectations for My Students and the Strategy that I am thinking to use:

The strategy that I am very interested in implementing in my future science classroom for Middle and High school level is the Project-Based Learning strategy; as it shows that students seek to tackle problems, they must be able to analyze those problems, develop solutions, and carry out plans to address them, Integrating these skills into instruction through engaging activities that rely on competencies such as researching, brainstorming, and design thinking.

My high academic/behavior expectations for my students that they must be able to master academic content, communicate and collaborate effectively, think critically, and become life-long learners.

So Integrated STEM Education through Project-Based Learning improve math and science education.  When we expose students early to opportunities to learn math and science in interactive environments that develop communication and collaboration skills, students are more confident and competent in these subjects. This not only makes higher education more attainable for students, but also contributes to a well-prepared society.

I believe that Effective STEM integration's goal is to provide students with the opportunity to construct new knowledge and problem-solving skills through the process of designing to enable students to transfer their knowledge and skills to real-world problems, to be motivated to learn, and to improve their math and science scores.

References:

1. Creating a High-Performance Learning Environment, AnnenBerg Learner Posted on February 4, 2015 Written by Lori Stokes. Retrieved from https://learnerlog.org/acrossthecurriculum/creating-a-high-performance-learning-environment/ on November 7,2016.
2. Deepers Learning in Practice, Edutopia posted on June 5, 2015. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/deeper-learning-in-practice-jennifer-kabaker on November 7,2016.
3. Integrated STEM Education through Project-Based Learning by Diana Laboy-Rush, STEM Solutions Manager at Learning.com. Retrieved from http://www.rondout.k12.ny.us/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=16466975 on November 7,2016.
4. Studying Mathematics in China — Long Hours, High Scores, HowChina.cn. Retrieved from http://www.howchina.cn/studying-mathematics-in-china/ on November 7,2016.
5. Explainer: what makes Chinese maths lessons so good? The conversation.com. Retrieved from       http://theconversation.com/explainer-what-makes-chinese-maths-lessons-so-good-24380 on November 7,2016.