Ten Core Principles for Designing Effective Learning Environments

Ten Core Principles for Designing Effective Learning Environments:Insights from Brain Research and Pedagogical Theory
by Judith V. Boettcher


Core Learning Principle #1: Every Structured Learning Experience Has Four Elements with the Learner at the Center

Core Learning Principle #2: Every Learning Experience Includes the Environment in which the Learner Interacts

Core Learning Principle #3: We Shape Our Tools and Our Tools Shape Us

Core Learning Principle #4: Faculty are the Directors of the Learning Experience

Core Learning Principle #5: Learners Bring Their Own Personalized Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes to the Learning Experience

Core Learning Principle #6: Every Learner Has a Zone of Proximal Development That Defines the Space That a Learner is Ready to Develop into Useful Knowledge

Core Principle #7: Concepts are Not Words; Concepts are Organized and Intricate Knowledge Clusters

Core Learning Principle #8: All Learners Do Not Need to Learn All Course Content; All Learners Do Need to Learn the Core Concepts

Core Learning Principle #9: Different Instruction is Required for Different Learning Outcomes

Core Learning Principle #10: Everything Else Being Equal, More Time-on-Task Equals More Learning

Conclusion
Current research about how students learn is illuminating the processes involved in teaching and learning. Insights gained from this research and integrated with traditional learning principles can help guide our design of learning environments so that both teaching and learning can be more efficient and effective.
One major insight contributing to these principles is the uniqueness of each brain in its structure and its accumulated experiences. We each do experience and remember events just a little differently. This richness of perspective and worldviews is a challenge as well as a potent creative force. The combination of the uniqueness of each learner and the richness of each learner's perspective argues persuasively for more emphasis on a pedagogy that emphasizes community, culture, and ethics as well as the acquisition of knowledge, content, and skills.
Finally, our campus environments—physical and online—are the places where structured teaching and learning takes place. Just as we evaluate and redesign the teaching and learning processes between faculty and students, so too must we redesign the environments in which such processes occur, ensuring that the design and tools we select support the growth of the unique brains we are responsible for nurturing.
[Note: This paper is adapted from a presentation at the League for Innovation Conference on Information Technology, November 9, 2004. Earlier versions of these ideas have been published in articles in Campus Technology and used in faculty development workshops.]



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