Structuring Environment – A Thinking Environment with Intentionality

Structuring Thinking Environments

Thinking Environments, a professional development model, is an awareness,understanding and a process focused upon the design, interface and impact with the environment of the physical learning space. The environment is ‘The Third Teacher’ (Reggio Emilia) where we focus on designing the physical space with the ‘Image of the Child’ as a root understanding. The ‘Image of the Child’ (Reggio Emilia) respects and understands the child’s frame of reference in regards to how children see, sense, use and interface within the environment. The teacher’s decisions:

  • with intentionality — impact the classroom and school’s environment.
  • are crucial to the quality outcomes of the children and youth’s learning experiences and how they model the children.
  • become a model to how students learn to consider using their environment: in school, home and the greater community.

Download the front matter (contents and introduction) for an overview) as a pdf file.

A key to the success of Thinking Schools Ethiopia is consideration of Structuring a Thinking Environment with intentionality. When developing the ‘classroom environment’ consideration is made to what best supports student learning.

<em>The three video clips below provide examples of Thinking Schools Ethiopia educators and students engaging in discussions and modeling of classroom structures.

  • How do the educators and students reflections compare with one another?
  • How can their decisions with structuring a thinking environment impact teacher and student outcomes?

Download the front matter (contents and introduction) for an overview) as a pdf file.