Educational

The Flexible Classroom

If you have school-aged children, chances are that you’ve suddenly found yourself in the home-schooling business … in addition to trying to get your own work done at home. We’ve written quite a bit in this space about successful classroom environments. Does any of that translate to the home, and how can it help?

Probably the most important thing to know about trends in learning environments is the move away from the traditional teacher-up-front, everyone-facing-forward classroom and towards flexible spaces to support different types of activities and different types of learning.

This definitely applies at home. If your child or children need to participate in online classes, a quiet, private area as free from distractions as possible is best. The fewer things going on around them to take their eyes and ears off the screen, the better. They’ll be more engaged in what’s being presented and better prepared to participate. Consider having them use earbuds, which will help block outside noises and also keep the session from distracting others.

For these sessions, you don’t want them flopped on the couch somewhere. Sitting up straight at a desk or table will be more conducive to maintaining the focus they need.

Group activities with siblings, on the other hand, will want larger, flexible spaces to the greatest degree possible. A large table suitable for educational games or jigsaw puzzles is great if one is available, and if it’s in a room that can be closed off so the inevitable noise doesn’t disturb your home-working, so much the better. And there are plenty of educational shows and activities that can be served up via your smart TV while the kids are comfy on the couch.

(As noted in this post, the colors used in a learning environment can make a big difference too, but we’re going to guess that you’re not up for redecorating right at this moment.)

No one knows your child and the way he or she learns better than you do, but if you have the ability to provide multiple spaces for different types of learning, you’ll find that it breaks up the day into manageable chunks and helps with attention spans.

Maybe you can even get some of your own work done.

Question about learning environments? Contact us at Douron.

Keeping Students Engaged: Classroom Furniture

Just as a typical workplace has evolved over the years, so has the classroom. And just as with the workplace, the furniture to support modern educational spaces has changed as well.

In both cases, the key term is “engagement.” Workers who are engaged do more and better work, and students who are engaged do more and better learning, no doubt about it. So what does it mean to be “engaged” in the classroom, and how do furnishings support that?

Engagement is a move away from the classrooms you might have grown up in … neat rows of uncomfortable desks that were never moved, all facing the teacher/lecturer at the front of the room. The classrooms were inflexible arrangements to support an inflexible model of education: teacher speaks, students listen.

Today, education is much more of a two-way street with critical thinking, collaboration, stimulation and more participation from students as typical goals. And a bunch of hard chairs facing the same direction simply do not support this model. So how are we keeping students engaged with classroom furniture?

Classroom furniture for the 21^st century is not only more comfortable, but far more flexible, allowing spaces to change to suit group collaboration, individual pursuits and yes, still the teacher-up-front model when necessary. Swivel chairs promote greater comfort and, therefore, better learning. Tables that are easily moved can be reconfigured to support activities for groups of various sizes. And dividers can be put into place to convert those same tables for individual work (and to reduce the chance of copying from someone else’s test … some things haven’t changed).

Beyond the seating and table arrangements, looks for more whiteboards and lots of markers, or even writeable walls, to encourage creativity, collaboration and sharing. The more whiteboard opportunities there are, the better the chances of converting thoughts from verbal to visual.

This evolution has seen a shift in the epicenter of the classroom from teacher to student as learning changes from passive to active. Furniture that supports this new reality is absolutely vital to its success.

Check out more photos from some of our 21st century schools here.

A Space for Every Child

We spend a lot of time learning about learning environments. After all, it’s part of our mission to team with educators and administrators alike to create spaces that are most conducive to learning. If you scan through our previous posts here, you’ll find quite a few dedicated to educational spaces and the designs, technology and even colors that best promote a learning space for every child.

Different types of spaces promote different types of learning, from the traditional teacher-in-front classroom setting to smaller, more interactive arrangements, which is why we’re big fans of the agile classroom approach.

But we need to remember not only that different types of learning take place, but that every student is different as well. There is no one-size-fits all solution in educational spaces, simply because some students will thrive in a quiet setting that promotes concentration, while others will really blossom in more hands-on, interactive settings. Those fidgety kids who disrupt the traditional classroom setting might well turn out to be real leaders in a small group session.

The ideal environment supports not only different types of learning, but different types of learners, and the classroom that’s stuck in the traditional lecture-hall setting may prevent some students from reaching their full potential. That is why it is crucial to provide spaces for every child to ensure the most potential for learning success.

Questions about design for educational spaces? Contact a design expert at Douron.

The Colors of Learning

There’s little question that the colors used in a learning environment can have a significant impact on the students … many studies over the years have confirmed the important role colors can play in learning.

The question, though, is which colors are most appropriate for a classroom and most conducive to learning? And how should those colors be used: in furniture, wall colors or other accents?

The answers vary depending upon both the students and the goals, and sometimes practical considerations as well (for example, lighter colors may be more calming, but any parent can tell you that lighter-colored furniture might not be the best choice in a room full of children).

The broad-brush consensus is that large amounts of bright colors, especially reds and oranges, are best avoided, as they can lead to overstimulation and anxiousness. The calmness and comfort engendered by cooler colors like greens and blue will offer better results in most cases, as will neutral off-whites.

Most rules have exceptions, though, and there’s a big one here: younger children tend to thrive in brightly-colored environments. Babies are born without the ability to see color, and seeing bright hues helps them learn to distinguish one color from another. Brighter colors also help to hold their attention as they age through the preschool years.

And of course the answer for your given situation depends on the physical space. A traditional main classroom area might feature neutral and calming colors, while areas designated for free play or other hands-on activities will benefit from more dramatic choices. And in a more modern setting like an agile classroom (see a previous post about agile classrooms here), fixtures and furniture can be swapped in and out with color schemes to support any given activity.

If you’re considering a redesign of an educational space, contact Douron today to schedule a tour of our showroom for ideas!

National Landmark Transformation

We are honored to be a part of this National Landmark Transformation. The Howard High School Landmark sits in the heart of a wonderful city and will stand tall and proud for the next 100+ years.

The images in the link provided below give side-by-side views of both the original and current spaces within the project. The black and white images were taken soon after the building’s completion in 1927. The color images were taken as the school reopened following the 2018 renovation.

These photos illustrate the programmatic evolution of the school. Very few rooms remained serving the same purpose as the original layout. The cooking room, wood shop, laundry room, music room and a few more were transformed in either multi-function spaces or renovated to fit the needs of students in today’s world, such as driver’s education and more classroom areas for multi-use. Although there were multiple changes over the intervening nine decades, these photos highlight the care in which the National Landmark transformation help to preserve, restore and revive both the structure and spirit of this historic school to serve the needs of 21st century Howard High students.

Click on link to see how things have changed.

http://architects-one.com/photos/2018/11/09/howard-high-school-before-after-photos-2/

Moving Target: Technology in the Classroom

One of the great challenges in modern learning space design is accommodating the shifts in technology that have come to the classroom. The pace of change is so rapid that we really have to plan for the unknown.

Perhaps the biggest question in deploying technology in the classroom is not the “what” but the “how.” Often, new devices are employed to support the same teaching methods from decades past. In a book we’ve referenced in previous posts, From the Campfire to the Holodeck: Creating Engaging and Powerful 21^st Century Learning Environments, author David Thornburg notes that interactive whiteboards have become all the rage of late. These are wonderful and versatile tools, but when they’re used just as blackboards were – to support a teacher standing in front of a class and lecturing (the ‘campfire’) – the potential of all that new technology is diluted at best.

Thornburg also notes that many schools continue to ban classroom smartphone use by students for fear that the devices will be used to Google test answers or otherwise take shortcuts. The solution is to craft tests with answers that require independent thought and can’t be answered by an internet search, but in fairness that approach creates a much bigger demand on an educator’s already limited time, both in the creation and the grading of open-ended challenges. It’s much quicker to review multiple-choice answers than to assess the effort in independent research.

So when we don’t know what new technology the coming years will bring, and when different schools use the same technology in very different ways, where does that leave classroom design? What are the design elements that allow us to plan for the unknown?

In a word, flexibility. The same approach that allows a classroom to support different models of learning – and to quickly adapt from one to another – also supports ever-changing technology. The ideal modern learning space is a design chameleon, changing quickly to accommodate the teacher at the whiteboard, the students circled up with their smartphones to research a new assignment as a group … and whatever comes next year, and the year after that.