Page 166 - Foundations of Learning, 4th Edition (Revised)

College Learning Environments

You will encounter a variety of different classroom learning environments during your time in college.
While the lecture may be the most common, it by no means is the only environment or even the best
environment (especially for developing a wide variety of learning skills). This section briefly describes
some of the classroom environments you may encounter in college.

Lecture
The lecture is a common learning environment with which you are familiar. In
a typical lecture, students (passively) listen while the instructor (actively) talks.
The lecture is an efficient means to communicate information from an expert
to enhance the information base of students. However, the effectiveness of a
lecture is reduced over time due to peoples’ relatively short attention span. Unless
students think critically about what is being said as they take notes (which requires
active listening), learning is not effective. Finally, the lecture builds only a small number of skills in the
cognitive (thinking) domain without requiring skills in other areas (e.g., social and emotional).

Interactive Lecture
In an interactive lecture, a student is more involved and active than in a traditional lecture. In this
type of learning environment, the instructor can do any of the following to make the lecture more
interactive:
• give a quiz at the end of class

• provide a set of critical questions that are to be answered during the
lecture

• ask students to work on discussion questions with another student(s)
every 15-20 minutes

• use the last 5-10 minutes to have students write down what they have learned along with any
questions they may still have

In an interactive lecture, students are accountable for understanding the class material at the time it is
presented rather than waiting until after class to digest and study the material.

Group Discussion
In a group discussion, the topic or new knowledge becomes the focal point
for a discussion among a team of students. Questions provided by the
instructor and/or generated by students serve to stimulate and guide the
discussion. Discussions work best when there is a facilitator or moderator
to control tangents, provide summaries at periodic points, and require
group members to contribute.

Laboratory
A laboratory environment allows students to learn and create knowledge in a manner
similar to the way a scientist would. Used in a variety of disciplines, laboratories
build a wide range of skills including collecting data, making hypotheses, designing
experiments, analyzing data, validating conclusions, and communicating results.

160 Foundations of Learning