College 100
American Public University
Professor Floyd Maertens

The Role Environment Plays On Education
The role environment plays on education is remarkably significant, wether in grade school or an adolescent the affects can be life changing. As in adolescent the environmental factors include: how they are cared for by their parents, the neighborhood they live in, and their instruction in schools. Most learning is developed in a physical environment such as: sitting under a tree, in a classroom lecture, or in a home. Although specific targets within the environment attracts students attention like the warmth of fire and the angle of light draws students. Not only are we affected by the environment but also by new experiences, in which we are able to either learn or not learn during these situations. Students may direct their attention to particular targets in the learning environment that they find more interesting, important, or unfamiliar than others. Keen, Meg (2005) For example, a classroom with circular tables and comfortable armchairs may look strange because it deviates from expectations formed through prior experience. Some learning environments are more comfortable and offer fewer distractions than others. In any learning environment, physical characteristics that cause discomfort can be expected to interfere with learning. As for environments that produce positive emotional states can be expected to enable a place of attachment. While technology is advancing and became part of the American culture, it has made a tremendous impact on education. Laptops and other mobile devices have great potential to enhance and transform instruction and are being used effectively in various classrooms.(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005) Today's students use their devices in class to take notes, access materials and applications, and find relevant information. When students using technology as a tool or a support of communicating with others, they are in an active role rather than the passive role of recipient of information transmitted by a teacher or a textbook. Moreover, when technology is used a tool or to support students in performing authentic tasks, the students are in the position of defining their goals, making design decisions, and evaluating their progress. Within the past few years, the role of a teacher has changed. The teacher is no longer the center of attention as the dispenser of information, but rather plays the role of facilitator, setting project goals and providing guidelines and resources, moving from student to student or group to group, providing suggestions and support for student activity. As students work on their technology-supported products, the teacher rotates through the room, looking over shoulders, asking about the reasons for various design choices, and suggesting resources that might be used.(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005) The home environment provides the foundation for learning and is an element of the student's life that can affect grades. Education success is positively impacted by home learning opportunities such as parents reading to their children and also trips to the library. Parents are responsible for ensuring that their children are well-fed, well-rested, happy and calm before going to schools. When a parents disapproval and punishment is implemented majority of the time in a child’s life it often has a negative correlation with students education. A student's learning success is enhanced when both parents and teachers clearly state their goals for student performance.( Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1979). Parental expectations and communication about the value of learning and the child's skills have a powerful effect on the child's motivation to learn. On the contrary to it a distorted and unhealthy environment, adversely affects the learning of the student. The upward mobility brings resistance on the part of the student to learn. Student's belongings to such families find themselves unable to cope up. A healthy peer group can also play a vital role in learning. A students relationship in the classroom, school, society, etc., creates a particular type of emotional climate. The climate solely depends upon their relationships. A sound relationship provides a tension free environment to the student enabling him to learn more and to complete in the class. If the relationship among peers is not good, it adversely affects their learning. Wether its through technology, parenting, or culture, the environment plays a remarkably significant role on education. We are all highly susceptible to environmental triggers and these triggers can powerfully effect responses in us. Oliver, C. and P.C. Lippman (2007), It is very important for students to be aware of the triggers in the environment and, as far as possible, ensure that they surround themselves with items that produce positive associations within. So, it is clear that our environment has a profound impact on our education and will even influence how students perform in school.

References

Keen, Meg (2005). Social Learning In Environmental Management
Oliver, C. and P.C. Lippman (2007), “Examining space and place in learning environments”, paper presented at the CONNECTED
International Conference on Design Education, 9-12 July, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

Donald A. Bligh, What's the Use of Lectures? (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005).
Marc H. Bornstein, ed., Handbook of Parenting: Children and Parenting (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002)