1. Are They Studying or Are They Learning?
Learning refers only to significant changes in capability, understanding, knowledge, practices, attitudes or values by individuals,
groups, organisations or society.
Qualification 1: Learning excludes the acquisition of factual information when it does not contribute to such changes.
Qualification 2: Learning excludes immoral learning as when prisoners learn from other inmates in custody how to extend their
repertoire of criminal activities.
Are They Students or Are They Learners?
Students Learners
Relationship with Students are employees, required to Learners are citizens with a vested interest in the learning society.
Educators obediently follow instructions.
Relationship with Students are competitors Learners are collaborators
other Students
Motivation Obligation: Students are culturally Responsibility: Learners are motivated by an understood and realized
obliged to work for the teacher & for “value” in their work, especially when it is valuable to others.
compensation (below)
Compensation Institution defined grades and gateways A sense of ongoing accomplishment that is not delivered but earned,
to college (another institution) and a and not symbolic but tangible and valuable – an investment.
good job (another institution)
Mode of Operation Compliant, group-disciplined, objective- Persevering, self-disciplined, group-, goal-and product-oriented,
oriented, and trainable resourceful, and learning in order to produce and accomplish
rather than simply achieving learning.
Why Compelled Curious
Equipped …with packaged knowledge and tools …with tools for exploring a networked variety of content,
for recording packaged knowledge – experimentingwith that content, and discovering, concluding, and
prescribed and paced learning construction knowledge – invented learning
Assessment Measuring what student has learned. Measuring what learner can do with what has been learned.
Learning quote from Frank Coffield, Just Suppose Learning & Teaching Became the First Priority (2008).
Student / Learner chart from blog post of 8 October 2010at http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/?p=2762.

2. ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS TO CONSIDER
Ideal Impact
What would you like the impact of this course to be on students two to three years after the course is
over? five to ten years after the course has ended? As learners, and across this span of time, what
would distinguish students who have taken your course from those who have not?
Learning & Teaching Philosophy
How do you define learning? What constitutes a climate of learning? How have you learned to teach
and how do you currently teach? How do your own ideas about learning and teaching align in
practice? How do you view students as learners? What knowledge, skills, and attitudes are
important for student success in your discipline? What are you preparing students for? What are key
challenges in the learning process for students new to this course? Which of these challenges are
related to students’ need to unlearn misconceptions as part of learning to construct new knowledge?
Environmental Factors
What teaching methods can contribute to student success in mastering the course learning
outcomes? Why are these methods appropriate for learning in your discipline? What are the multiple
modes of assessment that might provoke students’ engagement in learning? How might out-of-class
work prepare students for engaging in classroom learning?
1. Learners
What is the life situation of the learners (e.g., working, family, professional goals)? What prior
knowledge, experiences, and initial feelings do students usually have about this subject? What
will students need to learn, unlearn and relearn in order to meet course learning outcomes? What
will they need to learning about learning for this course – as a key component of learning in this
course? beyond this course? How might students resistant key practices of learning – and how
do you plan for this? What makes the course outcomes with doing, the processes worth
pursuing? the achievements worth seeking?
2. Course Learning
What learning expectations are placed on this course by the university, college and/or
department? the profession? the individual students? society? Why was the course proposed
and approved in the first place, and by whom? What special purposes does it serve (those
beyond the meeting of a curricular requirement)? Where does the course fit into development of
citizens who will be immersed in 21st century integration of work and life?
3. Course Context
How many students are in the class? Is the course lower division, upper division, or graduate
level? How long and frequent are the class meetings? How will the course be delivered -
consider class session structure, use of technology to support learning or deliver teaching? What
should students be able to teach or convey to others at the end of the course?
4. Field & Community Contexts
Is this subject primarily theoretical, practical, or a combination? Disciplinary, multidisciplinary,
interdisciplinary? When and how – and by whom - does the subject you’re teaching
welcome/support/invite divergent ways of answering core questions? Are there important
changes or controversies occurring within the field? How can students become proficient with core
cognitive, psychomotor/skills, and affective/human development elements in order to become
practitioners and lifelong learners? How does the work of the course “fit” into society at large –
needs, issues, interests, questions? What are community expectations of / for learners pursuing
higher education, this subject? for learners linking study to daily life, local contexts?
Adapted from Linda NilsonTeaching at Its Best;L. Dee FinkSignificant Learning for Significant Living; and
CRLT Occasional Paper 23 “Writing a Statement of Teaching Philosophy for the Academic Job Search.”

3. Course Name:
LEARNERS’ CONTEXT from self to COURSE CONTEXT: LEARNING and
campus to community to cultures TEACHING
COURSE CONTEXT: CAMPUS and
IDEAL COURSE OUTCOME DEPARTMENT
FIELD / DISCIPLINARY CONTEXT
COMMUNITY CONTEXT