Conditions for Literacy Learning: From Conditions of Learning to Conditions of TeachingAuthor(s): Brian CambourneSource: The Reading Teacher, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Dec., 2001 - Jan., 2002), pp. 358-360Published by: Wiley on behalf of the International Reading AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20205062 .

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Conditions for

Literacy Learning

From conditions of learning to conditions of teaching

Brian Cambourne

I've spent much of my profession al life trying to understand the

complex learning that regularly occurs

in the everyday world. One of my aims

has been to develop a way to describe

complex learning that teachers would

find useful, especially with respect to the

teaching of reading. In trying to achieve this aim, I have managed to identify a

generic set of ecological factors that seem to support such complex learning. I originally referred to these factors as

"conditions of learning," and this label seems to have stuck.

"So what?" you might think. Well, here's something I recently wrote in my reflective journal:

I wonder what might have happened had I start ed from the other side of the teaching-learning equation? What if I'd begun with these questions? 1. Is it possible to identify and describe a

generic set of ecological factors that seem to

support complex teaching! 2. Is it possible to develop a way of describing the

complex nature of teaching in ways that teachers would find useful, especially with respect to the creation and maintenance of classrooms that

support and nurture the learning of reading?

This column is a first attempt to explore these possibilities.

Classrooms as teaching settings

If teaching, not learning, was to be

my focus, I first needed to identify an

ecological context in which teaching could be systematically observed. I de cided to focus on the literacy teaching that occurs in typical Australian and

American K-6 classrooms. Second, I

realized I would need a robust theoreti cal orientation to frame, guide, and di rect my thinking. I was attracted to a

conceptual framework known as "eco

logical psychology," which was pio neered by Barker (1968).

The major tenet of ecological psy

chology is that the environment is con

nected to human behavior in lawful and

predictable ways. By lawful and pre dictable Barker meant that what hap pens within them can be explained by theoretical principles that are empirical ly grounded. The unit of analysis that

Barker and his colleagues developed to conduct their research was the "behav

ior setting" (Barker & Associates,

1978). A paraphrase for behavior set

ting would be "a place where humans

regularly gather to engage in (predomi nantly) predictable behaviors."

Examples of behavior settings abound. The service at our local church

each Sunday at 9:00 a.m. is one. So too

is the caf? on Main Street, the bar where our university students gather on Friday afternoons, and the corner drugstore.

All are places where humans gather to

engage in certain kinds of recurring be

haviors, which at one level are very pre dictable. By predictable I mean that one can close one's eyes and picture the

probable behaviors of those who typi cally enter each of these settings.

There are other similarities. All be havior settings seem to have three ma

jor components: (a) humans behaving (e.g., praying, listening, singing hymns,

buying and selling goods); (b) inanimate

physical objects (paraphernalia), which

support the behaviors that are supposed to occur (e.g., pews, hymn books, glass

es, chairs, walls, doors, goods); and (c)

ongoing routines or patterns of behav ior that seem to be followed by all who enter the setting. It is as if there's an im

plicit, agreed-upon contract or program

that controls the flow and sequence of events occurring within each setting. In each one the behaviors and the physical objects used seem to be organized (per haps even controlled) by these programs in ways that form nonrandom patterns.

Most classrooms in Western democ racies can be characterized the same

way. Not only are they places where hu mans regularly gather to engage in (pre dominantly) predictable behaviors, but

they can be described and understood in terms of the relationships between the

components, which are integral parts of behavior settings: (a) the physical prop erties, (b) the number and character of the humans who typically enter the set

ting, and (c) the program(s) of events

that typically occur within that setting's organization. Here's what emerged from my first attempts to apply this framework to classroom settings.

??? The Reading Teacher Vol. 55, No. 4 December 2001/January 2002 ?2001 international Reading Association (PP. 358-300)

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How do classroom settings work? In terms of identifying a generic set

of ecological factors that can describe classroom teaching, the preliminary find

ings are promising. What's emerged so

far suggests that there are increasingly complex layers that can become the basis for description. Here I am going to report on only the two least complex layers of

description. Layer 1 represents the least complex

layer of description. Figure 1 is an at

tempt to capture it in schematic form and

depicts classrooms as behavior settings that are stable and dynamic. Like any other functioning behavior setting, the

paraphernalia, programs, and inhabitants

constantly move and interact. In these

settings the teachers are the human in

habitants with the most executive power. This power enables them to manipulate two of these three variables to create the kind of learning culture that they desire.

With respect to the paraphernalia, not

only can teachers decide which inani mate physical objects they will buy or use to teach reading, but they can also decide when and how they will be used,

by whom, and even where they will be stored. Furthermore they can decide on a host of other things, ranging from what

(if any) wall print will be created, how it will be affixed to the walls, how the fur niture will be arranged, and so on.

Teachers also have full executive

power to create and implement the

roles, routines, and relationships that make up the program that organizes and controls the setting. They typically have

relatively little control over the third

component?the children who will be come the regular inhabitants of this set

ting. Therefore, teachers must decide what kind of learning culture they want to create and maintain across the school

year and then what kind of program (i.e., what kinds of roles, routines, and

relationships) they need to set it in train.

Essentially teachers create and main tain this program through the language they use, the actions they demonstrate, and the expectations they communicate. In the classrooms I've been studying, the teachers constantly remind children how to sit, listen, respond, and take turns. They also let children know how to meet the other diverse expectations they have of them.

Figure 1 Classrooms as behavior settings

Figure 2 Episodes as opportunities to learn

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. ::::*:%-::->:*J i i i ? i i i i i?^ -

4 ? t^tpl

Episodes are specifically created

opportunities to learn?for example, days of the week

/ Inhabitants

The outer edge of the oval in Figure 1 represents the physical and temporal

boundaries that encase the setting. For

the reading classrooms I've studied, the

physical boundaries would be the four walls of each classroom, whereas the

temporal boundaries are marked by the time slots between which the teachers teach the subject called reading. This is

typically 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., but it can occur at other times.

The three generic components of be havior settings are contained within these boundaries (not necessarily distributed in

equal proportions as Figure 1 might sug

gest) and interact constantly, creating and shaping the culture that teachers want. This culture is represented by, and

Conditions for Literacy Learning 359

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Figure 3 The flow of episodes in a reading session

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"floats" on, the dots that fill up the oval. These dots represent a fluid, ocean-like,

ubiquitous medium that permeates the whole setting; at one level it is moving, dynamic, and ever-changing, whilst at another it is constant and omnipresent. I have decided to refer to this medium as

the "classroom ethos."

Layer 2 represents opportunities to learn about reading. Figure 2 is an at

tempt to capture this layer schematically. The task teachers face is to create oppor tunities for students to learn while

they're immersed in this deliberately manufactured ethos. Teachers do this by creating and orchestrating behavioral events that they typically refer to as

"episodes," "strategies," "engagements,"

"minilessons," and so on. (Those teach

ers I'm currently working with prefer "episodes.")

Episodes are deliberately designed by teachers to create opportunities for stu

dent learning to occur. As such they are structures that float on the ethos created

by the mix of the three generic compo nents of the setting, and they are influ enced by this ethos.

Figure 2 shows a fourth generic com

ponent of the learning-to-read setting: episodes. These are specially created

opportunities to learn with certain pro cedural steps, which the teacher mod

els and students are expected to learn to

apply. The example in Figure 2 is "days of the week," an episode that occurs

every day in most Grade 1 classrooms I've observed on both sides of the Pacific. In this episode, teachers use the

language and activities inherent in dis

cussing which day of the week it is, what it was yesterday, what it will be to

morrow, or what the weather is like as a medium for teaching some of the con

cepts and skills involved in effective

reading. The boundary around the

episode is dotted. This represents its

permeability. The ethos of the larger classroom setting on which it floats can

flow back and forth into the episode, thus shaping it and vice versa.

Episodes can thus be considered basic units of teaching behavior. A school ses

sion (morning, midmorning, afternoon), indeed a whole school day, can be de scribed in terms of a linear sequence of

episodes that teachers design and then execute to achieve certain predeter

mined outcomes. Figure 3 is a primitive

attempt to depict these ideas, and it

shows a hypothetical classroom setting in which a series of episodes ( 1 through

N) are strung together by the teacher in

order to teach the skills and knowledge needed for effective reading. These

episodes can be further unpacked and

studied, but that's another story.

Final comments

So far, my first-year students, and the

classroom teachers who support their

professional learning, have used these

two levels of description as a generic framework for thinking about teaching.

My students report that the levels form

a useful tool to support their first ama

teurish attempts at systematic classroom

observation. They claim that thinking about teaching in terms of four generic

components (paraphernalia, inhabitants,

programs, and episodes) "provides a fo

cus." It also helps them "know what to

look for" and "find the salient features"

when they are confronted by what one

of them referred to as "the overwhelm

ing complexity of classrooms." They

say, too, that it helps them talk about the

subtle and complex differences between

classrooms and the nature of the learn

ing that takes place in them.

The teachers report that the frame

work is useful for talking about teach

ing in language that is accessible to all, but that doesn't trivialize the complexi

ty of what they do. I hope that with

further research it can become a useful

adjunct to the conditions of learning.

References

Barker, R.G. (1968). Ecological psychology.

Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Barker, R.G., & Associates. (1978). Habitats,

environments, and human behavior. San

Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

The editor welcomes reader comments on this department. E-mail:

brian_cambourne@uow.edu.au. Mail: Brian Cambourne, Faculty of

Education, University of Wollongong, Northfields Avenue, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia.

360 The Reading Teacher Vol. 55, No. 4 December 2001/January 2002

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