Chapter 16 - Creating Effective Learning Environments: The Educator’s Perspective

Abstract

To be effective and enable easier transfer of knowledge and skills to real patient care situations, teaching should be context-specific. In addition to the importance of the psychological aspect, providing learners with a suitable physical learning environment is highly relevant for most simulation-based educational activities, as learners will associate tasks and actions with the physical context, which will eventually facilitate recall thanks to environmental cues. This educational principle is called “situated learning.” For this reason, educators need to develop learning environments that are appropriate for the knowledge and skills they are trying to impart to their learners and consider how the principle of situated learning can be applied to increase the effectiveness of their educational interventions. Effective learning environments are variable depending on the learners, the context, and the objectives of the educational activity. The type and number of learners involved, the learning outcomes to be achieved, how the learners are physically and psychologically engaged to take part in the educational activity, the resources required and accessible to make the important aspects of the simulation realistic, and how learning will be assessed, need to be taken into account.