Our Learning Culture

Our Learning Principles and Learning Definitions provide us with a common Learning Culture imbued with the Avenor values of responsibility, respect, solidarity, teamwork and self-realization. At Avenor College, we all (students, parents, teachers, staff, and partners) are committed to supporting this culture by using our personal creativity. Our common learning language is shared with the other member schools of the Common Ground Collaborative (CGC), of which Avenor is an active member.

At Avenor, we are committed to a common Learning Culture framed by our Learning Principles:

We can all learn how to learn and have a right to do so

Learning is personal and a social activity

Learning is both cognitive and emotional

Learning transfer happens best in rich, relevant contexts

To create learning cultures we need a common learning language

We set out to support our students in becoming experts in three well-defined forms of learning: Conceptual, Competency and Character.

Conceptual learning.

It occurs when students: Connect new knowledge (which may be difficult to understand at first) with existing knowledge and important concepts; Construct and reconstruct theories about how things work and why they are the way they are; test the theories they formulate in various contexts to give them meaning, so that they can explain them better and understand when, where, and how they apply.

Competency learning

It occurs when students: analyze an expert’s achievements and compare them with their own; identify the adjustments they need to make; practice a skill to refine it and turn it into an automatic response.

Character learning

It occurs when students: evaluate how certain behaviors and values would “look” if applied in a specific real-life context; act as a result of this evaluation; reflect on the effects of these actions.