When I Was in School…Today’s Learning Environment

When I was in school, learning was a highly structured and teacher-centered experience. Students sat in rows, teachers instructed, students raised their hands for questions with the goal of memorizing facts or sets of exercises. This approach of teaching has been coined “convergent”. Over the last few decades, more schools have embraced the opposing approach called divergent teaching. This style of teaching is student-centered and activity based. It facilitates critical thinking and problem solving through self-expression. Most educators agree there is a need for both approaches, however, in most cases the classroom itself has remained stubbornly unchanged.

When I was in school, group projects were rare, but when they were assigned, they were typically art-based projects. Today 21^st Century Skills are emphasizing communication and collaboration. New Tech Network Schools combine traditional subjects and challenge students with research-based group learning. Technology is integrated at multiple levels not only to communicate and present subject matter, but to extend beyond the parameters of a textbook.

Today for schools, we are designing environments that reflect divergent learning.

Learning also happens outside of the classroom. We are creating various styles of spaces outside the classroom where students can still be supervised but also have levels of freedom and flexibility to research, communicate, and collaborate.

Classrooms must be spontaneously adaptable.

We are creating spaces that can change from lecture style to group style learning in minutes. This means technology, equipment, and furniture must support various set-ups.