NBC News, 2016
The expert who blew the whistle on the Flint water crisis says the only way to protect the nation's school children against lead in drinking water is regular testing of virtually every fountain or sink they might use during the day.
But an NBC News survey of the country's 20 biggest cities shows that very few school districts have met that standard.
By T. R. Dunlap
Trends in K-12 classroom design are currently undergoing revitalization as new teaching and learning models become increasingly popular. While many students are still stuck in rows of hard seats that face a board and a teacher, there are current classroom models that integrate time-tested, effective pedagogical practices with more recent trends in education research. Today, popular instructional approaches are serving as a driving force to conceptualize differently the designs of learning environments.
Traditional pedagogies have tended to involve direct instruction—teachers told students what and how to think. Classroom instruction has long employed strategies for listening, memorization, argument, dialectical reasoning, use of analogies, and moral thinking. Pedagogy has been principally a verbal exercise and has long required student to speak and write. Under traditional pedagogical practices, classrooms featured a teacher at the center or in the front of the learning space, a lectern, and rows of seats or desks—the elements of these classrooms were arranged for a teacher-centered instructional method. This model of the learning space has endured, relatively unmodified, for centuries.
By the late 20th century, educators shifted their philosophical approaches to teaching and learning, and they came to emphasize pedagogical methodologies that centered on deconstructionism, collaboration, and critical thinking skills. Consequently, learning spaces were outfitted to promote these instructional approaches. Classrooms would hold moveable desks to form collaboration teams, circular tables to facilitate discussions, and labs for scientific investigation. Learning spaces began to feature technology—perhaps a row of computers at the back of the classroom or a projection systems to display students’ presentations. It is impossible to underestimate how the use of technology fostered changes in how we conceptualize teaching and learning. At this time, the role of the teacher began to take a new shape, as well. Teachers became facilitators of instruction, guides to the curriculum, rather than the soul source of information. The role of the student also changed, becoming more active participants in the learning process.
Now, in the 21st century, conceptualizations of effective instruction have undergone a philosophical shift, again, taking on new identifying characteristics. Today, recent trends in instructional research have revolutionized the education sector, providing new language for teaching methodologies and supplanting old pedagogical practices for new ones. Forces of globalization and an increasing value placed on diversity and inclusion now guide our approach to teaching and learning. The education sector is now dominated by language to describe comparative thinking, design thinking, project-based learning, game-based learning, strength-based learning, personalized learning, collaborative learning, blended learning, kinesthetic learning, and outdoor learning. Our instructional methodologies involve the facilitation of growth mindsets, mindfulness, and reflection. We are routinely introduced to new priorities such as the STEM/STEAM/STREAM evolution, and we find ourselves implemented the newest teaching trends such as flipped learning, maker education, and the emphasis on coding.
As pedagogical practices evolve, we encounter a redefinition of our values, priorities, and conceptualizations of the teaching and learning processes. Today, our instructional trends aim for student outcomes that demonstrate effective communication, bolster abilities to access and analyze information, and promote adaptiveness. Schools today are a community-centered enterprise that fosters students’ physical, social, emotional, and intellectual development through employing the constructive instructional methods.
Now we must ask the question: In light of the many pedagogical development, what should modern learning spaces look like?
In order to approach the question of what modern classrooms should look like, we should consider identifying our instructional priorities, then engaging in a process of brainstorming the classroom features that best facilitate our aims. For example, a list of priorities might determine that classrooms should be safe, comfortable, flexible, and provide students a range of sensory experiences. We would want to develop spaces that allow for individual work, and promote collaboration. Our priorities should entail inclusion of all students, diversity, maximizing opportunities, and student empowerment. As we list our priorities, we can begin the process of developing a list of classroom features that would bring about the kinds of instructional experiences we desire.
The instructional evolution demands a reconceptualization of learning spaces in the 21st century. There are many ways to address remodeling and redesigning classrooms to incorporate effective elements of new pedagogical approaches. Imagine a learning space that promotes the appreciation of cultural diversity with displays of artifacts or live video streams to classrooms abroad. Think about a classroom that offers students opportunities to discuss English literature and philosophy over coffee and tea—just as coffeehouses provide a particular atmosphere for business professionals to converse and collaborate, so too could our students benefit from this type of space. Perhaps a learning space could promote meditation and relaxation with yoga mats and ambient music—students’ physical and emotional health and development would be positively affected by opportunities to disengage from the rigors of curriculum material for times of reflection. Maybe the classroom could be inside of a yurt or wigwam to allow students greater interaction with nature and to make science come alive. Learning spaces could be designed to bolster students’ sleep cycle with circadian lighting throughout the day, or feature a variety of seating options for comfort and to promote positive attitudes toward learning.
There are all sorts of ways we can design and adapt learning spaces to accommodate the changes in instructional research and new pedagogical methodologies. Long gone are the traditional, teacher-centered approaches to student learning. We must now accept that the models for effective pedagogy are multi-faceted and require spaces that allow for and support a plurality of instructional strategies.
School Planning and Management, 2016
Whether your school district offers a Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) program or incorporates Art (STEAM), both programs have a similar goal: Deliver a robust interdisciplinary curriculum in a space that accommodates a wide variety of activities, tools and materials. This “makerspace” is a hub for hands-on, project-based learning, creation and invention. The key to designing a flexible makerspace is to ask the right questions during the planning phase.
Integrated STEM Education Conference, 2012
We present an informal learning experience for youth ages four through eleven and their families utilizing the integration of art, design, and technology to deliver STEM concepts. The workshop, titled Scrapyard Challenge Jr. 1.0 (SCJ 1.0), was developed from modifications made to an interaction design workshop oriented towards adults, in which participants build novel and expressive electronic objects using found materials and junk. Tapping into the momentum surrounding the maker and tinkerer movements, the learning experience introduces basic principles of electricity and systems thinking using hands-on activities that encourage personal and creative self-expression. Through detailing our experience we suggest that current trends in art, design, and technology practice can provide fertile ground for developing STEM learning. Indeed we argue that this triangulated space is the logical starting ground for the development of a wide variety of STEAMD initiatives.
Ghanbari, S., 2015
There has been some debate and research that suggests the arts are well-suited to be combined with science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines making the STEM acronym STEAM. STEM education is an educational and political priority in the United States and is valued as a means of strengthening national security and ensuring global competitiveness. The STEAM paradigm also emphasizes the importance of STEM education, but argues that the arts have the ability to open up new ways of seeing, thinking, and learning. This study aims to share student learning experiences in two established university programs that integrate an arts discipline with a STEM discipline. Student and alumni interviews are compared within a collective case study methodology. Framed by principles of sociocultural theory and experiential learning theory, this inquiry explores the role of arts integration, collaboration, and experience centered learning in knowledge creation.
America School & University, 2013
Successful STEAM school designs support and enhance hands-on, real-world experiences that intensify math, science, the arts, and other content areas.
By Angel Ford, Ed.D.
In my last blog, Learning Spaces Encourage or Discourage Autonomy Support, I proposed that physical learning environments affect the level of autonomy support that teachers feel and, in turn, the level of autonomy support that teachers are able to provide their students. In this blog, I focus on how the design of the physical learning spaces can affect students’ autonomy.
Here’s a quick recap as to why autonomy supportive learning environments are important. Autonomy is the feeling of being able to make choices about one’s own behavior and it is a key component of intrinsic motivation (Deci & Ryan, 1985). As autonomy increases, intrinsic motivation often increases; therefore, autonomy supportive learning environments are beneficial for increasing student engagement and success.
The question we often ask as educators is: How can we motivate our students? Deci & Flaste (1996) explain, '“The proper question is not, how can people motivate others?” but rather, “how can people create the conditions within which others will motivate themselves?”' (p. 10). The key question for this blog is: What are obstacles to student autonomy within the physical learning environments?
Unfortunately, schools—like prisons, factories, and hospitals—are often designed and built to enable and encourage a certain level of control (Dovey, 2014). This means that in traditional school buildings educators have to work against the built environment to produce a climate that is autonomy supportive. Evidence is plentiful that the social environment or social climate of a school affects learning. Studies are starting to produce evidence that the physical environment either helps in “facilitating learning and well-being or posing a challenge to them” (Sjöblom, Mälkki, Sandström, & Lonka, 2016).
Not only is the institutional design of school buildings a concern, the rise of security in schools has made the physical environment of schools more prisonlike. The increase of cameras and metal detectors can have a negative affect on students’ perceptions of safety and security (Mallett, 2015). The intention of increasing safety may actually have the opposite affect on how students feel.
In addition to the institution-like design of school buildings and increasing security measures, there are other physical obstacles to creating autonomy supportive learning environments. For example, a teacher who has to teach in a specialized classroom setting such as an auditorium would have to put forth a great deal of effort to overcome the association that students automatically make with that type of space. “An auditorium implies a different positioning and division of roles than a classroom where the desks are organized in groups and the teacher has no central position but is, instead moving around the classroom on a chair” (Sjöblom et al., 2016, p. 21). Other examples of physical environment mismatches of form and function would be “having to work on a group assignment in a silent library hall or endeavoring to understand new theoretical material in a noisy hallway” (Sjöblom et al., 2016, p. 21).
Sjöblom et al., (2016) suggest that issues in the physical environment decrease the ‘cognitive resources’ students can use for learning. Effective teachers work around the physical limitations of their classrooms when possible, but there are times when the design of the spaces dictates pedagogical options. School building design should accommodate an array of learning methodologies in order to allow for the feeling of student autonomy as teachers offer options throughout their teaching.
Mallett (2015) suggests that schools are run like prisons and feel like prisons. Prisons are places where autonomy is purposefully stripped away from inmates. Does the design of the school built environment make students feel more like controlled inmates than students motivated to learn? Studies could be conducted that will help answer this question and other questions about how the physical learning environment can be designed or altered to promote rather than hinder students’ feelings of autonomy.
References:
Deci, E. L., & Flaste, R. (1996). Why we do what we do: Understanding self-motivation. Penguins Books.
Deci, E. & Ryan, R. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Pantheon.
Dovey, K. (2014). Framing places: mediating power in built form. Routledge.
Mallett, C. A. (2015). The school-to-prison pipeline: A comprehensive assessment. Springer Publishing Company.
Sjöblom, K., Mälkki, K., Sandström, N., & Lonka, K. (2016). Does Physical Environment Contribute to Basic Psychological Needs? A Self-Determination Theory Perspective on Learning in the Chemistry Laboratory. Frontline Learning Research, 4(1), 17-39.
Dr. Angel Ford is a research associate with Education Facilities Clearinghouse (EFC). Dr. Ford has previous experience working as a middle/high school administrator and actively participates in research and content management of the EFC website.
In 2004, the Oregon Transportation and Growth Management Program contracted with the Community Planning Workshop (CPW) at the University of Oregon to conduct a year-long evaluation of Oregon’s school siting process. The purpose of the evaluation was twofold: (1) to develop a better understanding
of the challenges and opportunities school districts and local governments experience when making school siting decisions; (2) to empower school districts and local governments to make more informed decisions about future school siting. This handbook is the culmination of that research and synthesizes many of the lessons learned.
As part of the study, CPW performed the following tasks:
Literature Review: Conducted an extensive review of literature about school siting issues.
Case Studies: Investigated the school siting practices of eight school districts around the state through site visits and interviews with school superintendents, school facility planners, local government planners, architects, and neighborhood groups. Administered a school transportation survey and conducted focus groups at four middle schools to learn more about how children get to and from school.
School Superintendent Survey: Created a survey, disseminated to school district superintendents, focusing on district needs and siting issues.
Oregon School Siting Forum: Held a statewide conference encouraging dialogue about school siting issues by a wide range of people, including school district personnel, architects, planners, health advocates, and neighborhood organizers.
Beatty & Shimshack, 2011
School buses contribute disproportionately to ambient air quality, pollute near schools and residential areas, and their emissions collect within passenger cabins. This paper examines the impact of school bus emissions reductions programs on health outcomes. A key contribution relative to the broader literature is that we examine localized pollution reduction programs at a fine level of aggregation. We find that school bus retrofits induced reductions in bronchitis, asthma, and pneumonia incidence for atrisk populations. Back of the envelope calculations suggest conservative benefit-cost ratios between 7:1 and16:1.
Environmental Law Institute
According to the U.S. EPA, indoor radon exposure results in an estimated 21,000 lung cancer deaths in the United States each year. That makes indoor radon the second leading cause of lung cancer, the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers, and the seventh leading cause of cancer mortality overall.
Radon is a colorless, odorless gas that is produced from the decay of radium released from uranium ore that is present in most rock and soils. When radon enters a building through cracks or other openings in the foundation or slab, it becomes concentrated indoors. Inhaling radon over a period of years increases cancer risk; the higher the radon levels, the greater the risk.
