Ulearn 2019: Enabling Flexible Learning Environments

Jacque Allen and Del Costello (Cognition)

Good teaching doesn't change, regardless of the space

E raka te Mauī, e raka te katau - A community can use all the skills of its people.

How can flexible learning environments work effectively for learners and teachers?

  • Teaching designed around student needs to enable learner agency
  • dialogue-based teaching (high student interaction, flexibility, many people involved in a range of tasks, 
  • Looks like modern workspaces 
  • Pedagogy, practice, and environment
  • Curriculum design and implementation - Collaborative teaching - learner agency and authentic learning (and learning with digital technologies - flexible learning spaces)
  • What works well for the learners in front of us? What does reading, writing, maths look like in this space?

Learner Agency - continuum (flexible - can move from one end to the other)

  1. Supported learner - teacher-guided, learning deiciosn made with you to ensure you are on the right path. When something is new this might be where to start
  2. Self-Managed Learner - an individual student understands what is required and can work through a range of tasks at their own pace independently. These students ask for clarification when required and are confident to work collaboratively with others t achieve a goal
  3. Self-Directed Learner - individual students take responsibility...
Shared monitoring platforms

Physical Space 
Virtual Space - digital, books, etc
Cultural Space - the people who inhabit the environment

Think about how the furniture fits in each of these three layers - affordances and constraints - are the layers in conflict with each other?

Step back and scan all three spaces

Give the learners the freedom/capacity to organise their learning environment the way they want to 







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