Futurelab: What if...? Re-imagining learning spaces (original) (raw)
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Educational Architecture - Education, Heritage, Challenges, 2019
Over the past 20 years the world at large has undergone radical changes, in a pace never seen before in human history. A change mainly caused by digital technology and the 4 th industrial revolution. This paper argues, that schooling, especially primary schools, has not been able to adapt or keep up with that change. We currently see a learning-and assessment culture, a curriculum and a set of teaching methods in schools that no longer correspond with the skills students need in the future, nor correlates with what we know are the best methods for motivating pupils to actively engage and take ownership of their school work. In others words there seems to be a growing gap between what the current school systems are teaching and testing, and the skills students need to thrive individually, socially and professionally. Closing this gap, the physical environment of the school plays a significant role. We are shaped by the spaces we inhabit, and the 'affordance landscape' of a building, determines our possibilities and limits for thought and action. It is through the physical design of learning spaces that we can open up for new teaching practices and learning processes. So if we want to change the way kids learn, we need to change the spaces in which this learning is to take place. It is argued, that the basic problem of school architecture, are to be found in the fact, that decisions are first and foremost informed by hygienical standards, mere esthetics or personal opinions of policy-makers, architects and engineers. Easy-to-measure aspects like air-quality, amounts of daylight and square meter per student, seem to be the main concern. Far less often do we ask the question of how the layout and design of the school strengthens students' abilities for collaboration, their motivation for active engagement in school life, concentration and memory-processes. Through three corresponding architectural design-concepts Moving Architecture, Learning Architecture and Biomimetic Architecture, this paper aims to draw the outline of a decision-making tool that can help ensure, that schools are first and foremost build from a child-centred learning perspective. Keywords: School architecture, learning, Moving architecture, Learning Architecture, Biomimetic architecture, 21st century learning skills, creativity, future schools, learning spaces, learning space design
REDESIGNING LEARNING SPACES: WHAT DO TEACHERS WANT FOR FUTURE CLASSROOMS
The concepts of future classrooms, multimedia labs or active learning space has recently gained prominence in educational research. Evidence-based research has found that well-designed primary school classrooms can boost students' learning. Also, schools' principals, teachers and students are requesting for more flexible, reconfigurable and modern classrooms' layouts, where technology and active pedagogical practices can be incorporated into an easier way. Under the scope of TEL@FTELab Project (Technology enhanced learning at Future Teacher Education Lab) of the Institute of Education of University of Lisbon an empirical study was conducted with 82 teachers of elementary and secondary schools aiming to capture their vision about what the classrooms for the future should be. Data was collected through a focus-group methodology. Teachers were asked to form groups of 3-to-8 elements and challenged to build a 3D mock-up of their future classroom by using a 1:20 scale kit provided by the researchers. The process of the classrooms construction was videotaped and content analysis of the mock-ups was conducted. This article presents the results of the data collected, focusing specifically in the following aspects: descriptive key concepts of what is seen as a future classroom, spatial organization (different working zones identified by the teachers), physical elements (furniture and equipment) and environmental aspects (light, sound, air quality, temperature, colour, natural elements, comfort and security).
Optimal Learning Spaces Design Implications for Primary Schools
SCRI Research Report Series, 2009
SCRI Research Report ii 2 for Construction and of the European Construction Technology Platform. He has produced over one hundred and seventy single volume publications, refereed papers and reports, and has made over one hundred and ten presentations in around sixteen countries. Peter has been leading the CIB initiative on Revaluing Construction for some years and part of this concerns better understanding how value from the built environment is gained by those in society. This has led to work in the area of Senses, Brain and Spaces, ie how spaces are experienced by people through their senses and interpreted by their brains. The practical application of this interest has been around school buildings and in particular how to create "optimal learning spaces". use environmental control strategies to modify their internal environment. In January 2008, she joined SCRI as a Research Fellow. Yufan's work in SCRI is to conduct research on a variety of issues related to 'realising value in use' of the built environment. This involves the identification of international good practice, linking this to evidence from applied activities, such as the post occupant evaluations, in order to develop a stronger evidence base to better understand the characteristics of beneficial spaces for users, especially in the design and refurbishment of schools.
Evaluating the pedagogical effectiveness of learning spaces
2015
This paper describes the development and ongoing use of the School Spaces Evaluation Instrument (SSEI): an evaluation tool developed to gather information about how effectively school architecture supports teaching and learning. In 2009, the Australian Federal Government pledged $16.2 billion towards the Building the Education Revolution (BER). Over the following three years learning spaces were built or refurbished in 9,526 schools nationwide. In Victoria, Catholic Education Melbourne (CEM) encouraged schools to work with architects to design bespoke solutions. This process led to the design and construction of hundreds of new learning spaces, each with different spatial arrangements. Approximately five years on, questions remain about which architectural solutions worked best. To help answer these questions, and inform decisions about how capital budgets should be spent in the future, the Learning Environments Applied Research Network (LEaRN) and CEM collaborated to develop the SS...
The Design of School Buildings: Potentiality of Informal Learning Spaces for Self-directed Learning.
Proceedings of the 12th Space Syntax Symposium, 2019
Schooling systems could be perceived through three main dimensions: students, the learning process and the built environment portrayed in the school building. Each dimension comprises different parameters. This research has chosen to focus on the spatial affordances of the school buildings specifically the affordances of ‘informal learning spaces’ for students’ activities including ‘self-directed learning’. Informal learning spaces are continuously overlooked within existing research. They are the spaces outside classrooms: assembly spaces, dining areas and circulation corridors, where students take initiatives to construct their own knowledge through different activities: reading a book, doing homework, revising for exams. These activities are defined as self-directed learning. The theoretical framing of this paper brings together the Gibsonian concept of spatial affordances i.e. possible actions that occur in the built environment with the systematic study of potentialities arising from configuration according to Space Syntax. Informal learning spaces will be evaluated through Bernstein’s concept of classification and framing. Classification is the degree of boundary, which applies to the curriculum, school system and more importantly the space itself. Framing is the locus of control, i.e. who controls the process of learning and its material, which also applies to spatial control. The paper investigates the design of two school buildings in London to explore the key design features that could impact the students’ learning. Using interviews with architects and a detailed space syntax analysis, it highlights the potential of various school spaces to afford the students’ activity patterns. The design process and the configurational analysis indicate that both schools show differential potentialities for self-directed learning. The degree of classification and framing influences the spread of activities, especially the ones initiated by the students: self-directed learning. School A seems to afford a horizontal grid distribution of activities along the main spine and the central arcade (lowest Visual Mean Depth spaces). School B has an overall vertical organisation scheme around five circulation networks and five house assembly spaces. The spatial configuration seems to afford the spread of students’ activities within the assembly spaces. The design of school A is argued to represent weak classification (boundaries) and strong framing (control). There are weak boundaries within the open plan arcade space and spine. Accordingly, self-directed learning would potentially spread organically along the building within low VMD spaces, when students need to be seen, mix and study together: assembly spaces, wide corridors and arcade; and within high VMD spaces when students need to concentrate: multi-use lab and study rooms. Still, the school communicates strong framing, due to the high degree of control within the classical design of the closed classrooms and studios. The design of school B is the opposite case of strong classification but weak framing. The school maintains strong boundaries between the five houses and their assembly spaces. Activities could flourish within each house boundaries and its dining area according to the management’s rules of dividing the building (strong classification). The open large learning platforms called ‘super-studios’ maintain low degrees of control over the learning activities, thus communicate weak framing. Insights presented in this paper lay the foundation for understanding the potentiality of the main design components inside the schools Proceedings of the 12th Space Syntax Symposium (assembly spaces, dining rooms, circulation spaces) to induce and accommodate students’ self- directed learning, thus to be considered by architects in future school building design.