Ten Core Principles

I recently had the pleasure of attending a Webinar hosted by Dr. Judith Boettcher entitled Ten Core Principles for Designing Effective Learning Environments: Insights from Brain Research and Pedagogical Theory. While some Webinars can become a bit dry, Dr. Boettcher kept her large audience interested by addressing principles and examples with which most college instructors can identify. The core principles are listed here.

1. Every structured learning experience has four elements with the learner at the center.

Dr. Boettcher calls this the LeMKE framework or Learner, the Mentor/faculty member, the Knowledge, and the Environment (Boettcher, 2003). To quote her explanation of this framework, “This principle can be captured by envisioning a learning experience featuring the learning “on stage” actively learning under the direction of the mentor/faculty member using a set of resources containing the knowledge/content/skills to be learned within an environment.”

2. Every learning experience includes the environment in which the learner interacts.
3. We shape our tools and our tools shape us.

To understand this principle, Dr. Boettcher reminds us that learning only occurs through an “interaction between a person and a learning environment.” In the past, this interaction occurred in a limited environment; the instructor lectured and the students took notes. Now with wireless, mobile hand-held tools, and Web sites, these tools change the communication patterns and relationships between students and faculty.

4. Faculty are the directors of the learning experience
5. Learners bring their own personalized knowledge, skills, and attitudes to the learning experience.

As faculty know, today’s instructional course designs build on what the students already know and then attempt to take them to the next level.

6. Every learner has a zone of proximal development that defines the space that a learner is ready to develop into useful knowledge.
7. Concepts not words; concepts are organized into intricate knowledge clusters
8. All learners do not need to learn all course content; all learners do need to learn the core concepts.
9. Different instruction is required for different learning outcomes.
10. Everything else being equal, more time-on-task equals more learning.

If after reading this review you wish to see Dr. Boettcher’s article on these principles, please download her PDF from Innovate online at: http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=54