Applying Ideas From a New Culture of Learning  

A pastor of mine once shared a message about anxiety during a Sunday service. Although this reflection on the book, A New Culture of Learning by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown is not related to anxiety, the message stuck with me. In our current world, the only thing we can count on staying the same is that nothing stays the same and that change is inevitable. I think about this often especially in how our world in education is constantly shifting. The children I teach today are not the same children that I began teaching in 2009. To keep up with the constant changes in our environment, we need to make drastic adjustments to the environments we create for today’s learners.
     
Education in the 1940s included math drills, spelling practice, and memorization of historical dates. Despite following the old way of education, some schools and educational leaders recognized a need for progressive education where students have fun learning by doing (Mitchell, 2007). Although the beginning of progressive education was budding in the 1940s, we are still in need of making major changes to our schools in our modern day. Creating learning environments that inspire creativity and passion, encouraging building on ideas through collaboration, and allowing learners to explore new experiences through play are some ideas for how we can create a new culture of learning (Thomas & Brown, 2011). My intention is that I will find a way to implement these three characteristics in my Innovation Plan which promotes a blended learning model in a primary educational setting.
 
Is There a Need for Change?
In schools, you will always find teachers who follow their unofficial motto of “This is how I’ve always taught it and it still works.” The problem with this mentality is that we are not helping our students make meaningful connections which are fundamental to learning. By giving our learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities, we help our children make meaningful connections that engage them in active learning (Harapnuik & Thibodeaux, 2023). In A New Culture of Learning, Thomas and Brown state we have a problem with a Mechanistic View of learning where students are taught a series of steps to master a concept like machines which promotes standardization (Thomas & Brown, 2011). If we want to continue to see innovation and advances in our future, we must find ways to encourage creativity in today’s youngest learners.

Enhancing Learning Through Passion
I like to view myself as a self-directed learner who enjoys finding new information on my own. With that said, the second someone tells me I have to learn about a certain topic, I shut down, put up mental blocks, and do not want to engage. Eventually, I comply and do my assignment, but rarely does the information I learn stick. I imagine I am not alone. Thomas and Brown share an example of how passion affects learning. Hardcore Harry Potter fans can easily share many facts and information about the Harry Potter series by J.K Rowling. They did not gain this information by taking classes and participating in drilled exercises, but by absorbing and experiencing the information for themselves as passionate Harry Potter fans (Thomas & Brown, 2011). Imagine if we allow children to pursue their interests and passions. Through exploring their passions and guided by their inquiry and curiosity we remove the limits of information they obtain. Including problem and project-based learning options through a blended learning model, students can make their own choices based on what motivates them. This does not mean they have the freedom to research whatever they like, but with guidance and quality inquiry we can allow students to take ownership of their learning. In an elementary math class, this might look like planning a vacation to their choice of destination. Participants might have questions about what tourist attractions are available, what type of food is popular in the area, and what historical landmarks are around. With having to plan an itinerary and staying within a budget, these learners would be required to use their skills to keep a schedule and apply math to ensure they meet the constraints given. 
 
Learning and Growing with Others
Many schools today participate in professional learning communities or the PLC model. The idea started when a group of educators came together to communicate about common interests while also sharing common struggles. School leaders eventually learned that collaborative efforts supported professional growth and provided better outcomes (Ferlazzo, 2021). This same idea of learning and growing together falls true with children. According to Thomas and Brown, a collective “a collection of people, skills, and talent that produces a result greater than the sum of its parts (Thomas & Brown, 2011). Everyone can find their place to contribute to the collective. With classrooms full of diverse populations and varied student experiences, they each come with their perspectives when it comes to tackling a task or overcoming a problem. Being able to see other people’s perspectives broadens our views which allows children to think more critically. The alternative is watching a teacher model various problems. The students do not get an opportunity to think and then are stuck when they are approached with a problem that doesn’t match any of the example types that the teacher modeled. The idea that two brains are better than one is highlighted in Sam’s story. Sam was a child gamer who participated in an online gaming forum where he was able to share his gaming creation which was then improved by others in his “collective” (Thomas & Brown, 2011). In class, this might look like creating an open-ended math problem that could have many solutions. Through collaboration, students work through productive struggle to overcome the task learning from each other’s ideas, strategies, and even mistakes.
 
Learning through Play
It is known that children learn best through play as they have many new experiences during the beginning stages of their lives, but that adults do not require learning through play since the amount of new experiences they encounter are limited (Thomas & Brown, 2011). However, this idea is outdated if we think of how technology is rapidly being updated and improved upon. If we think about how we learn about our new technology, we must experience it or play with it; we take what we already know and apply it to our new settings to learn even more (Thomas & Brown, 2011). Just last week, I was helping a colleague with linking certain slides in a slideshow. Since she often comes to me with her tech questions, she wondered how I always seem to know where to click and how to navigate all of our technology programs. She said, “Don’t tell me you just play around with it.” Despite her comment, that is exactly how I learn. I learned by doing. If this is true for me as an adult, it must be true for our students. We need to offer our children opportunities to play and explore with their peers to help build background knowledge and experiences for their future. As a second-grade teacher, I might invite students to explore how we use place value in different situations. Students will be able to play different place value games to solidify their understanding of place value concepts before exploring how we use place value to solve problems in real life. Our learners could choose how they find and present their information while also receiving feedback from their peers.
 
Taking off the Rose-Colored Glasses
Building this significant learning environment using ideas from A New Culture of Learning sounds enticing. However, this shift will not come without its obstacles. Many districts provide their teachers curriculum that follows the mechanistic view of learning. Making the change will require teachers like myself to be innovative curriculum designers who must devote extra time to these tasks. My goal will be to help other teachers see the significance of these ideas and begin to build a collaborative group where we can put our ideas together to create authentic learning opportunities for our young students who have so much potential to show off their creativity. Carrying a growth mindset will be imperative during this work. Our school doesn’t have the plans yet, but together with like-minded and passionate teachers wanting a change, we will develop opportunities for igniting learners' passion, collaboration, and play to foster a learning environment suitable for today’s children. The time needed to devote to planning these experiences is limited in a teacher’s world where our to-do list never ends. This is why collaboration is so important. The sharing of ideas and solutions to setbacks will help keep the work flowing. As teachers with high expectations, we must also keep in mind that we don’t have to have it all figured out yet. This will be a process where the content and experiences we give to children will grow as we learn each year instead of a task that will be finished in one school year. Setting that expectation will help with the feeling of overwhelm when many teachers are already experiencing these feelings. 
 
Final Thoughts
Reading A New Culture of Learning has inspired me to do better for my learners. Many of the ideas in the book such as allowing opportunities to pursue passions, providing a collaborative environment, and having students experience learning through play, are ideas that I agree are vital in creating a significant learning environment for authentic learning. I hope that I can inspire others on and off my campus to follow some of these same ideas by sharing my experiences through my ePortfolio and social media. For many, people need to visualize concepts concretely before they can see themselves also making the shift. Hopefully seeing the learning soar and engagement levels rise, more educators will be ready to provide similar opportunities for their students.
 
 
References
Ferlazzo, L. (2021, April 25). Professional learning communities can “unleash the learning!” 
     Education Week.https://www.edweek.org/leadership/opinion-plcs-can-unleash-the-
     learning/2021/04
Harapnuik, D., and Thibodeaux, T. (2023). COVA: Inspire learning through choice, ownership, 
     voice, and authentic experiences. (2nd ed.). 
Mitchell, D.J., (2007, August 1). Progressive education in the 1940s. [Video]. YouTube. 
     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opXKmwg8VQM
Thomas, D., and Brown, J.S. (2011). A new culture of learning: Cultivating the imagination for a 
     world of constant change.