Module 2 – Week 5: Creating Positive Learning Environments

A set of question-and-answer flashcards covering key ideas from Week 5 on creating positive learning environments, including the four environment components, play spaces, classroom design, and the Reggio Emilia philosophy.

Which AITSL Standard focuses on creating and maintaining supportive and safe learning environments?

AITSL Standard 4.

How can the learning environment influence students?

It affects their moods, feelings, behaviour and capacity to learn and play, and even influences brain development.

What message does the design of a learning space send to learners and the community?

It communicates how much we value students and their learning.

What are the four key components of a positive learning environment?

Physical, Social-Emotional, Intellectual, and Temporal environments.

Which learning-environment component concerns how indoor and outdoor areas are organised?

The Physical Environment.

Give three examples of factors teachers consider when planning the physical environment.

Any three of: flexible furniture, space, storage, materials, technology, lighting, air quality, noise levels, safety, or students’ individual needs.

Which component relates to the classroom’s feeling and tone set by teachers and students?

The Social-Emotional Environment.

Name two teacher behaviours that support a positive social-emotional environment.

Examples: greeting students by name, showing approval, positive facial expressions, respectful verbal language, or active listening.

What makes an intellectual environment effective for learning?

It is safe for educational risk-taking, tasks are challenging and meaningful, expectations are explicit, destructive competition is avoided, and effort is celebrated.

What does the temporal environment address?

How time is used, negotiated, and structured, including predictability, activity length, and transitions.

Why should activity length match students’ developmental and concentration spans?

To maintain engagement and optimise learning without causing fatigue or frustration.

What opportunities do well-designed play spaces provide?

Physical activity, application of learning to real contexts, and creative or imaginative play.

In the lecture’s ‘Check-In’ example, the labelled drawers for textbooks belong to which environment category?

Physical Environment.

In the same ‘Check-In’ example, the teacher making eye contact with speakers fits which category?

Social-Emotional Environment.

Why are student-centred learning environments important?

They raise engagement by addressing learners’ interests, needs, and voices.

What characterises a well-planned learning space?

It is practical, stimulating, and has clearly defined areas for different activities.

What does it mean for a classroom to be ‘flexible and responsive’?

Furniture, resources, and layouts can be easily adapted to suit varying activities and learner needs.

In the Reggio Emilia philosophy, what is referred to as the ‘third teacher’?

The environment itself.

List four design principles associated with Reggio Emilia environments.

Any four of: aesthetics, active learning, fostering relationships/collaboration, use of light and transparency, bringing the outside world in, flexibility, or the ‘100 Languages’ of expression.

Who is considered the philosophical founder of the Reggio Emilia approach?

Loris Malaguzzi.

Where did the Reggio Emilia approach originate, and how did it spread?

It began in the Reggio Emilia region of northern Italy and, while created for kindy/pre-school children, its principles are now applied in schools around the world and across age groups.