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Chapter 8 synthesizes the research findings from the processes of sensory cognition into the design and configuration of the learning environment. The focus of cognition changes perspective and focus from the attributes of an external stimulus to the internal processes of integration with prior learning and internalization into a new cognition of the individual, which is labeled as the individual's learning ecology. These processes provide a plausible model for the design of the learning environment dimension, which internalizes the learning into transformational and ultimately lifelong learning. The processes of sensory cognition provide a viable and practical model to engineer learning cognition in the same way the brain does with sensory cognition. Like sensory cognition, learning cognition is the result of the structure of the learning environment.

The process of differentiating each of the dimensions of learning is demonstrated by the application of three possible conceptual frameworks for each dimension, which are based on the theories of learning, instruction, and environment. Multiple existing theories apply to each dimension of the curriculum, including one framework that is a synthesis of several related theories. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate how theories may be adapted into design templates and used to configure the components of the curriculum. The outcome of this process is to create coherent curricula through the practical application of theories of learning as design templates.

A blueprint template is presented to visualize the internal alignment, interconnectedness, and overall coherence of each curriculum. This template visually depicts the functional interactions between the curricular components as dynamic relationships. This tool reveals the design relationships within the curriculum for purposes of design and evaluation. For curriculum design purposes, this form is used to establish and maintain the alignment among the dimensions of a curriculum (horizontally in the template) as well as the interconnectedness of the components. Engagement with the learning process begins by translating the content of each learning objective into instructional objectives, which aligns the instructional components with each learning objective. The instructional objectives are configured to align the content and structure contained in the outcomes and objectives with the instructional components. In this curriculum design system, the instructional taxonomies of Bloom, Engelhart, Furst, Hill, and Krathwohl (1956) are adapted as design templates to demonstrate three strategies to configure the structure of the learning engagement dimension into three distinct purposes of developing cognition, skills, or values within each dimension (vertically in the template).

The learning experience in this curriculum demonstration differentiates three distinct instructional functions: the learning of thinking skills, the learning of performance skills, and the learning of values-based performance. A template adapted from credible theories of instruction configures the specified learning.

Three models also differentiate the learning environment dimension of a curriculum. The learning environment is structured to deliver learning through individual, cooperative, or collaborative processes. Although the environmental considerations mostly impact the activities through which learners interact with the content of the curriculum (reinforcement activities, assignments, assessments), the environmental factors influence all components of the curriculum and can be differentiated to promote and enhance learning. From the learner perspective, the learning environment is created by the dynamic interaction of all components of the curriculum to facilitate an unobstructed path to learning.

Laurea UAS, Lohja campus, in Finland, has a learning environment, Yrityslabra, for business management and administration students who want to complete their studies by doing real-life business assignments. This chapter depicts the elements of a physical learning environment that have contributed to improving learning results on Laurea Lohja campus. The campus was challenged with addressing long studying and graduation times, loss of students to other campuses, difficulties in employment after graduation and lack of cooperation between Laurea and organizations. To solve these problems, Laurea Lohja created a learning environment called Yrityslabra (Business Lab). As a result of the continuing development work and material gathered (interviews, memos from teacher development meetings, student evaluation discussions, and written evaluations), five distinctive elements for a learning environment were found. These elements are: informal physical environment, informal social environment, teacher’s role as a mentor, personal learning process, and project management process. As the result of the new learning environment, students on Laurea Lohja campus, for example, have shorter graduation times, and there are less drop-outs in the middle of the studies. Students also find work in their own field of interest and do so right after graduation. Also, there is increased interest for the graduating students to further their studies at the master’s level.

The ability for learners to interact online via their avatars in a 3-D simulation space means that virtual worlds afford a host of educational opportunities not offered by other learning technology platforms, but their use also raises several pertinent issues that warrant consideration. This chapter reviews the educational use of virtual worlds from a design perspective. Virtual-world definitions are explored, along with their key educational characteristics. Different virtual-world environments are briefly contrasted, including Second Life, Active Worlds, Open Sim, and Minecraft. A wide variety of virtual-world uses in schools and universities are examined so as to understand their versatility. Key educational benefits of virtual worlds are distilled from the literature, such as the ability to facilitate 3-D simulations, role-plays, construction tasks, and immersive learning. Emergent issues surrounding the use of virtual worlds are also analyzed, including cognitive load, safety, and representational fidelity. One higher education and one school level vignette are provided in order to offer more detailed insight into the use of virtual worlds in practice. Recommendations for learning design and implementation are presented, based on the thematic analysis of contemporary virtual-worlds research.

This chapter reviews student engagement and learning over of a six year study period (>500 students) in a technology rich learning environment. The technology rich learning environment in this project consists of tablet PCs for each student (1:1 environment), visually immersive multiple projection screens, and collaborative digital inking software. This chapter reviews the education problem being addressed, and the learning theory used as a lens to focus specific active learning pedagogical techniques to address the educational problem. From this problem-based learning theory grounded approach, the features desired in a technology rich learning environment were developed. The approach is shared in this chapter with specific detailed examples to allow others to implement technology rich learning environments with active learning pedagogical approaches to address specific education problems in their institution. The technology rich learning environment implemented and studied includes multiple hardware/software pieces to create a system level solution versus a single device or single app solution.

There are very few Black children in programs for gifted children when both historical and contemporary research indicate that such environments contain elements very similar to those described as advantageous for Black children. Presented here is an overview of the research regarding Black children’s learning styles, multiple intelligences, and cultural expectations around adult-child interactions and a comparison to characteristics of gifted (and potentially gifted) children. In addition, the evolution and refinement of the definition of giftedness is outlined along with the impact of those definitions on Black children. The identification, assessment, and testing processes used to place students in gifted programs are outlined along with policies (e.g., universal screening) and practices (e.g., more multicultural education and gifted education in teacher in-service and pre-service education) that can transform gifted programs into diverse and inclusive learning environments where gifted Black students learn, grow, and thrive. Finally, classroom practices that cultivate the genius and giftedness of Black children are presented – practices that give teachers an opportunity to add to their repertoire of strategies and pedagogy in order to increase their ability to create more inclusive learning environments that benefit all children in general and Black children in particular.

Creating a BIM-enabled learning space that spans both higher education and industry offers the possibility of immersive and integrated learning on the basis of real, up-to-date project data for a new generation of students who will be “BIM natives” and can “think in BIM”. This paper aims to elaborate the concept of BIM as a learning environment so that it can be produced for Architecture Engineering Construction (AEC) educational purposes.

The complementary theoretical lenses of Experiential Learning, Structuration Theory and Systems Theory are adopted for conceptualising a BIM-enabled Learning Environment (BLE).

The BLE is proposed in the form of a social system embedded within both the education system and the industry system. The BLE is described in terms of its structures and component subsystems, inputs, outputs and flows at different scales.

In this initial paper, the BLE is merely outlined and its constituent structures alluded to. Further investigation is required to fully detail the BLE.

By describing the identified structures in still more detail, the BLE can be understood to the extent that it can be reproduced in practice for actual learning. This is the goal and expectation going forward.

The derived BLE is described in social terms and this reflects the centrality of social activity to both building and learning. Technology, processes and traditional industry roles are subordinated into supporting functions. This potentially offers opportunities for learners to reflect on all of these and to consider ways of improving them.

Chapter 2 explains and demonstrates a systematic and science-based approach to the design of instructional systems. These design characteristics are related to the attributes of an effective curriculum discussed in Chapter 1. The consequences of the lack of a conceptual framework and its effects upon learning are discussed.

This curriculum design process employs a systematic approach in which each component of the curriculum is designed to reflect the optimal model for configuring the engagement, experience, and environment for the intended learning. Multiple sciences, theories, and research findings are used to inform and order each component into an effective and efficient learning process. As these components communicate the content and articulate the structure of learning, this approach optimizes the ability of the curriculum to capitalize upon the known or suspected qualities of the human perceptual system.

In this system of curriculum design, both the content and structure of the curriculum emerge from the collective intelligence of the discipline. The curriculum designer translates that disciplinary content and structure into learning objects (content) or events (structure) that drives and constrains the learner’s ability to achieve the learning, as conceived by the discipline. In this model of curriculum design, three dimensions of curriculum design differentiate the contribution to the learning processes of the learner. The dynamic interaction of three instructional dimensions enables the learner to engagement, participate in the learning, and benefit from the characteristics of the learning environment.

These three dimensions function as design variables and differentiate each dimension of the curriculum by the characteristics of the intended learning, the processes of instruction, and the consideration of the predispositions of the learners. The theories most concerned with the psychophysics of learning are used to organize and articulate the learning engagement components (learning outcomes and objectives) of the curriculum. The instructional theories plan the strategies that will be used to deliver the intended learning as identified and organized in the learning objectives to engineer a compelling learning experience. The sociological theories structure the learning activities to produce an efficient, consonant, and synergistic learning environment. Together, the use of these theories as design templates constitutes an evidence-based approach to the systematic design of the curriculum. These theories are transformed into design templates.

The design of the learning environment is also configured to engineer the learning environment to accommodate the cultural dispositions programmed into all learners. Cultural factors supply powerful drivers and constraints for human behavior and can be differentiated in the learning environment to promote and enhance learning. Cultural behaviors and mores are developed over hundreds of years and refined to ensure the continuation of a society and its “way of life.” These cultural traditions have effectively promoted and enhanced social behavior by programming each with cognitive strategies to ensure their success as a member of their social group. Individuals are unlikely or unable to discard these traditions when they enter a learning environment.

The literature on non-traditional classroom environments claims that the changed emphasis in higher education teaching from the lecturer to students has intensified the global focus on student-centred learning, prompting colleges and universities globally to introspect, re-examine, and re-structure their pedagogical approaches in an attempt to align with national educational policies, and to position themselves favourably with potential students in an increasingly competitive higher education environment. This is an environment that now relies heavily on digital learning technologies, which has provoked scholars such as Heick (2012) to perceive the change to the virtual as one that makes higher education institutions accessible from anywhere – in the cloud, at home, in the workplace, or restaurant. The COVID-19 crisis has reinforced the need for this flexibility. These forces have put universities and colleges under pressure to implement new teaching approaches in non-traditional classroom settings that are appropriate for, and responsive to, the COVID-19 crisis and students in terms of learning and social support. This chapter identified and appraised key teaching approaches. It is evident that there are three key teaching approaches that higher education institutions have adopted for delivering learning in an emergency and in a student-centred fashion. The three approaches, which include the time and place dispersion, transactional distance, and collaborative learning approaches, embrace social support because they are grounded in social constructivism. Academics need to be fully committed to the role of social support giving – that is, emotional, instrumental, informational, and appraisal support – in order to foster student wellbeing and cognitive development as students learn together but apart in non-traditional classrooms. The hurried manner in which teaching and learning practices in many higher education institutions have been moved to the online format has led academics to violate many key principles of the approaches they have adopted. And this situation is borne out in the case study discussed in Chapter 8 of this volume. A review of current remote teaching and learning practices is required if academics are to embrace the full principles of the approaches that are appropriate for teaching and learning in non-traditional classroom contexts.