AND TEACH
Transforming the Literacy Learning Environment: How can we improve the classroom environment to support students' learning? In the Cornerstone schools in which I work, the classroom environment is invariably, and rightly, a key action plan priority. Cornerstone Literacy Coaches work alongside teachers to create vibrant, word-rich, well-organized literacy classrooms where students can access resources easily and use displays to support their learning. Most teachers want to improve the learning environment in which they teach, and I am struck each year at the Summer Institute when I see participants from Cornerstone schools scanning the displayed samples of students' work and scribbling frantically into their notebooks to take away the good ideas they see. However, the fact that teachers rarely venture beyond the confines of their own classrooms can inevitably limit their imaginations about ways in which to organize the library area, students' desks, bulletin board displays and even the position of the teacher's desk. What can coaches do to broaden those horizons? Literacy coaches and classroom teachers could initially conduct a joint audit of classrooms and public areas within the school, using the following prompts:
Within each school, there would obviously be significant variation in the quality of learning environments. An audit would reveal that some classrooms display scant student work, and bulletin boards would be covered with commercially produced posters. These classrooms would often also display 'finished' anchor charts before that genre or aspect of learning had even been taught. Other classrooms, however, might have few teaching prompts and instead display a myriad of student work. Students themselves would be asked which displays in the classroom helped them most in their learning and whether or not they used any bulletin board to support their tasks. Often, students would say that they could not see the displays or teachers' writing because they were too small or were too far away, or that the prompts they might use would require constantly looking over their shoulder so they 'couldn't be bothered.' This clearly would have implications for the arrangement of furniture and seating within classrooms. (See Lu Lewis' Cornerstone video for a powerful illustration of transforming the literacy learning environment.) Listening to the students themselves would be one of the most important determinants in learning to develop and create a more effective learning environment. What is it our students need from the classroom for learning and why? In London I worked in schools whose results in English and mathematics were consistently significantly below national expectations. Some of these schools became involved in a National Primary Strategy intervention called the 'Intensifying Support Program' (ISP). The aim of the ISP is to raise standards in schools facing challenging circumstances. Improving the learning environment is a key area on which the ISP focuses, and the greatest impact resulted in schools that developed and promoted classroom 'working walls.' Typically in the UK, the classroom was seen as a place in which to display and celebrate student work, usually in the form of a published final copy. With working walls, however, the content of the walls changes regularly to support student learning as well as teaching; the walls are an integral part of teaching and not merely for the purposes of display. Working walls included current examples of shared writing, steps to success in writing a sentence, examples of when to use specific punctuation, spelling investigations, transforming 'sad' (i.e. dull) sentences into 'super' sentences, anchor charts for different genres, etc. Visits to colleagues' classrooms usually are not for the purpose of learning about the learning environment. However, one way in which to improve the learning environment collectively and effectively is to hold grade level and staff meetings in a different classroom each time. Each teacher would know that the first ten minutes of professional development would be devoted solely to staff observing a colleague's classroom to glean ideas and, in turn, to reflect on their own classroom as a tool for learning. In this way, ideas are shared in context and the classroom teacher can discuss with colleagues the prompts for learning that have proved most successful and why. Moreover, when visiting another teacher's classroom, teachers can ask, "What evidence remains of a lesson taught? What can I assume was the learning that took place during the previous lessons in this unit of study? How do I know?" Changes within the classroom would be based directly on the focus for learning outcomes and evidence of this should be clear for all to see. This model of professional development ensures that the aims of the action plan can be realized in a way that both promotes professional dialogue and is ongoing. Teachers value the opportunity to learn from each other and to explain to colleagues the rationale for displays and learning prompts. To achieve the action plan aims of transforming the learning environment for literacy, coaches need to consider the following:
*Navigation within website cited above: Click on "publications" on the front page. Under Continuous Professional Development heading, click on "Literacy Coordinators Handbook." Under "download" heading, click on "Literacy Coordinator Handbook." Go to page 57-74. References: |
