The CERI OECD/National Science Foundation International Conference took place in Paris, at the OECD Headquarters on 23-24 January 2012. Here the presentation of Session 4, Brokering Reasearch Findings to Benefit Innovation in Education, Item 1.

1. Translating Learning
Research into the Design
of Innovative Learning
Environments
David Istance, OECD
January 2012

2. OECD project “Innovative Learning Environments” (ILE)
Dual focus on learning and innovation central to current agendas
ILE aims to inform practice, leadership and reform through
analysis and exchange on configurations of learning for children
& young people, by:
1. Understanding the Lessons of “Learning Research” 2008-
2010 (helping to bridge the „great disconnect‟)
2. Compiling & Analysing “Innovative Cases” (Main pool
around130 cases, plus 40 of these looked at through case
studies): 2009-2012
3. Growing and sustaining innovative learning - “Implementation
and Change” Strand – starting now

3. “The Nature of Learning: Using Research to Inspire
Practice” OECD Publications, Sept. 2010, 338pp.

4. ‘The Nature of Learning’: 2
• Leading experts from Europe and N. America
invited to contribute
• Summarised the large bodies of research on
their subject in an accessible way, and…
• …identified key conclusions to inform the
design of learning environments
• OECD authors (Dumont and Istance) provided
scene-setting and final summary/reflections
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5. ‘The Nature of Learning’: 3
1.Analysing & Designing Learning 7. Technology and Learning
Environments for the 21st Century Richard Mayer
Hanna Dumont & David Istance
8. Cooperative Learning & Group-work
2. Historical Developments in the
Understanding of Learning Robert Slavin
Erik De Corte 9. Inquiry-based Learning
3. The Cognitive Perspective on Brigid Barron & Linda Darling-Hammond,
Learning 10. The Community and Academic
Elsbeth Stern & Michael Schneider Service Learning
4. The Crucial Role of Emotions &
Andrew Furco
Motivation in Learning
Monique Boekaerts 11. The Effects of Family on Learning
5. Developmental & Biological Barbara Schneider, Keesler & Morlock
Bases of Learning 12. Implementing Innovation: from
Cristina Hinton & Kurt Fischer visions to everyday practice
6. Formative Assessment Lauren Resnick, James Spillane, Goldman
Dylan Wiliam & Rangel
13. Future Directions
OECD (Istance & Dumont)

6. Chapter 13: Conclusions – the „principles‟
The research suggests that learning environments should:
• Make learning central, encourage engagement, and be where
learners come to understand themselves as learners
• Ensure that learning is social and often collaborative
• Be highly attuned to learners‟ motivations and the importance of
emotions
• Be acutely sensitive to individual differences including in prior
knowledge
• Be demanding for each learner but without excessive overload
• Use assessments consistent with its aims, with strong
emphasis on formative feedback
• Promote horizontal connectedness across activities and
subjects, in-and out-of-school
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7. Re-expressed in more familiar educational terms
Learning environments should be:
• Learner-centred: highly focused on learning but not as an
alternative to the key role for teachers
• Structured and well-designed: needs careful design and
high professionalism alongside inquiry & autonomous
learning
• Profoundly personalised: acutely sensitive to individual
and group differences and offering tailored feedback
• Inclusive: such sensitivity to individual and group
differences means they are fundamentally inclusive
• Social: learning is effective in group settings, when learners
collaborate, and when there is a connection to community.

8. Some observations, issues and tensions
• Some (e.g. Wiliam, Slavin, Mayer) stress that it is not the
activity itself (e.g. group-work or formative assessment) but
effective practice of those activities – not ‘treatments’ or
behaviours
• Some (e.g. Barron and Darling-Hammond) stress
dependence on demanding professionalism. What to do
when well-trained and organised teachers are absent?
• Some (e.g. de Corte) stress context-dependency for learning.
Does this rule out general guiding principles?
• Mix of approaches in coherent wholes vs impact of particular
practices (treatments)
• What are appropriate evaluation methodologies for deciding
the potential of innovations to inspire practice elsewhere?
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9. Dynamics and Organisation of Learning
Environments – the ILE framework
resources content
Learning Learning activities –
learners LEARNING
leadership how close to the
‘principles’?
‘teachers’
Learning
Feedback
Information
Evaluation and
about learning
assessment:
activities,
transforming learning
learners, and
information into
outcomes
usable knowledge
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10. In sum, effective learning environments will:
• Promote the principles through the pedagogical
and assessment approaches and learning activities
• Involve active learning leadership – distributed
agency creating learning aims and identifying the
strategic means to achieve them.
• Display well-developed capacity to gather
information on learning and transform it into
actionable formats (assessments)…
• … and use effective feedback practices for getting
such information back to learners, teachers and the
learning leadership.
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11. Framework informing ILE „Implementation and
Change‟
In addition to addressing how to:
1. Create and sustain effective learning environments
(applying the ‘principles’) – holistic micro learning level
Analysis and exchange of innovative practice around:
2. Approaches to improve alignment of the technical core
(the learning environment) and the organisational
environment(s) in which it is located
3. Approaches for developing the ‘meso level’ - learning-
focused networks & communities of practice
4. Exploring macro level strategies & approaches to build
capacity, create conditions, and stimulate innovative learning at
the micro & meso levels

12. Thank you!
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