Thriving in Academe

The Teaching Role: An Ecological Perspective
Thinking ecologically helps us understand our classrooms and what happens to us and our students within these classrooms as whole systems.

Teaching and learning is our business, and it's important business. If we focus on the classroom with an ecological perspective, it becomes a space where curriculum and course goals, professors, students, and the physical environment all come together.

An ecological biologist interested in reproductive behaviors of frog species would be remiss if he or she paid attention only to the species' characteristics and did not include interaction with the pond's environmental conditions. Likewise, ecologically thinking professors need to focus on both students and classroom environments.

Three important issues relate to our classroom as ecosystem: Who are the organisms? How do physical aspects hinder or support learning? How can we conceptualize these elements dynamically to fulfill the learning purpose of the ecosystem?

In our formula, learning is the behavior (B) that's the function of the persons/organisms (P) interacting with the classroom environment (E). That is, [B = f (P, E)]. In light of these factors-organisms, environment, and dynamics—the basic question is: What happens to what kind of organisms under what conditions?

The Organisms-Students and Professors
We know a lot about today's students. They are generally older than cohorts of the past. There are more minorities, women, and physically challenged students. They bring with them a wide range of goals, values, study habits, and learning styles.

Thus, today's students are diverse. While we know from our ecology metaphor that diversity enriches the ecosystem, it also poses a challenge. When the fish join the frogs in the pond, the ecological relationships become more complex.

The ecological professor is aware of both the richness and the challenge as the ecosystem changes to accommodate the new diversity.

In thinking of professors as organisms, several issues of student-faculty interaction emerge. For example, how do senior professors respond to the new electronic generation of students? Are newer faculty prepared to teach the "diversity" of students? How does the diversity of the new faculty in itself impact the classroom? These questions and more fuel the dynamics, and an ecological perspective helps keep the relationships in focus.

Physical-Social Environment
The second factor of the ecosystem formula is the physical-social environment. Physical factors include the space, chairs, walls, arrangement and design, color, and audiovisual systems. The social environment is the number of students and seating layouts. The arrangement of these features can both help and hinder learning.
Behavioral setting denotes the physical-social situations in which human behavior occurs. In the classroom, both instructors and students interact as the social component, and this interaction takes place in the physical environment.

The human and non-human components of the setting can support each other, or the two can be antagonistic. For example, it is difficult to form small group discussions when all the chairs are bolted to the floor.

Common sense and experience tell us that outcomes will be better if the physical environment supports the desired behavior than if it works against the desired outcomes. Thus, classroom spaces and facilities do not merely create a mood or atmosphere; they facilitate certain behaviors.

The ecological professor will try to make the environment work toward the desired behaviors. Moreover, if an institution thinks ecologically, design of classroom settings will be a cooperative undertaking involving not only facilities personnel but also faculty members and students.

Another important notion is manning theory, which refers to the filling of essential social positions within a behavioral setting. Settings can be undermanned, overmanned, or optimally manned.

Instructors are well aware that 150 students in a college classroom with a single instructor produces an "overmanned" condition. Too many persons occupy the position of student, and not enough occupy the position of instructor. Experience tells us a more optimal manning level would work more effectively—despite the increase in the cost per credit hour.

On the other hand, if only two students are assigned a massive library research task, the setting is undermanned and frustrating for the students. Typically, slightly undermanned and optimal settings provide for better learning because there is a reasonable match between the tasks to be completed and the number of folks available to complete them. An overmanned setting has too many students and increases the probability that some will become spectators rather than participants.

The carrying capacity of an environment relates to manning theory. The translation of this concept is straightforward in terms of classroom size, available personnel, and computer and audiovisual support. A small classroom with few resources will not "carry" the activities of a large introductory class. One television set will not "carry" a video experience for a class of 200.

While the concept of carrying capacity was developed to help understand human use of natural resources, it also gives us a way to view the college classroom. At some time, most of us have probably experienced problems arising from not understanding the importance of manning theory and carrying capacity—the environment clashes with our teaching and learning goals.

In short, the concepts of behavior setting, manning theory, and carrying capacity underscore the fact that the physical environment of the classroom is not just related to ambiance. It directly impacts learning.

The Dynamic Learning Ecosystem
As we progress with our metaphor, we realize that the major task for the "ecological professor" is to design a learning experience that brings the organisms (students and faculty) into a dynamic relationship within the classroom setting—in other words, to design conditions that foster learning. D. H. Blocher suggests that the ecological classroom needs seven conditions:

1. Involvement—The learner needs to put at risk significant psychological values and thoughts to entertain new learning.
2. Challenge—To promote new learning, old learning needs to be challenged by novelty, complexity, ambiguity, and intensity.
3. Support—New learning needs an environment of empathy, caring, and honesty.
4. Structure—New learning needs an environment that models slightly more advanced structures than did the old learning.
5. Feedback—The learner needs the opportunity to try out new learning modes in the presence of accurate and immediate information about performance.
6. Application—The learner needs a variety of ways to try out new skills.
7. Integration—The learner needs an atmosphere in which new learning can be examined and reconciled with past experiences.

Like a biological ecosystem, the classroom can be a healthier place when we know the organisms, the physical-behavioral characteristics, and the dynamic conditions.

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