spaces for immersion
Small group venues encouraging the audience to engage with each other as well as the center of focus.
Lewis, G. (2003). Teaching and learning in circle. Conflict Management in Higher Learning Report 3(2).
photo: Eric Graczyk
large group venue, all eyes on the stage
photo: JC Siller on Pexels
A catalyst for conversations about politics, art, identity, propaganda, beauty, and the limits of free speech.
photo: Bei Lin, via Unsplash
Spaces that fully envelope students in another world, so that learning becomes lived experience. The antidote to “aboutism” (Perkins, 2009).
Perkins, D. (2009). Making learning whole. Jossey-Bass.
photo: Willyam Bradberry, via Shutterstock. ID:527410729.
A window into another world, learning in the open liberated from behind classroom walls.
photo: Mohit Tomar, via Unsplash
Learning immersed in plants and soil, no matter the season or the weather.
photo: Public Domain on PxHere
Embodied learning by interacting with programmed projections.
photo: smallab
Students fluidly engage and disengage with each other as they pursue their own projects in an environment rich with resources. The 21st century classroom aspires to offer this experience.
Doorley, S. et al. (2012). Making space, how to set the stage for creative collaboration. John Wiley & Sons.
photo: FSA Farm Security
Imagine food as learning, about culture, about people, about history, about nutrition, about the joy of cooking, about biology, about production, about food systems, and about climate.
photo: The Grub Fest
Outdoor learning, but with teaching tools and shade, without the insects.
photo: Honeyguide Tented Safari Camps
spaces for inquiry
Advice counter. Help desk. Tech bar…Answering questions and teaching you to ask them.
photo: Abi Bell
Crowdsource your question.
photo: Samual Regan, via unsplash
Repeating recipes or inspiring investigations?
photo: unknown.
Seeking understanding.
photo: rupixen, via unsplash
Raw materials to nurture, engage and empower students.
photo: Hennie Stander via unsplash
spaces for inspiration
Hidden texts and artifacts intended to evoke mystery and inspire a desire for discovery.
“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science”
Einstein, A. (1935). The world as I see it. John Lane The Bodley Head.
photo: “The Guitar”, Bianca Battaglia
Spaces rich in raw materials primed for open-ended making activities: adventure playgrounds and kitchens also share those qualities.
photo: Kevin Jarrett via Unsplash
Unlike an ephemeral bulletin board, the shrine communicates enduring value and invites reverence and appreciation.
photo: “Homenaje al Viejo Mexico”, by Laurie Beth Zuckerman
If the world is getting smaller, why is there still so little understanding of it?
Gigantic maps are walked, and inspire imagination, curiosity and exploration.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/
roper2006/pdf/FINALreport2006GeogLitsurvey.pdf
photo: Dulce Lariz via Unsplash (modified)
What will be your future life? Wander the halls of one thousand possibilities, stark contrast to the more typical maze of mute and anonymous lockers.
photo: Bruce Tang via Unsplash
Curated media, windows into other cultures, seductive invitations to engage with the unfamiliar, art: these are all available through the video array.
Asia Society (n.d.). Preparing young Americans for today’s interconnected world. Asia in the Schools. http://asiasociety.org/files/
asiaintheschools.pdf
photo: “TV das wochenende naht…”, by Natascha Dimovic
Ad hoc polemic, science poster, art exhibit, or demonstration, bulletin boards display the ephemeral to keep walls lively and capture attention.
Kaufman, S. B. (2011, November 8). Why inspiration matters. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2011/11/why-inspiration-matters
photo: my artful nest at https://myartfulnest.blogspot.com/search?q=bulletin+board
Inviting engagement with outdoor ecosystems by making a place hospitable to plants and animals of all sorts.
photo: Jason Leung via Unsplash
Tasting and comparing from a curated set of tantalizing options: what better way to explore?
Rikard, A. (2015). Student agency is not something you give or take. https://www.edsurge.com/news/2015-10-16-student -agency-is-not-something-you-give-or-take
photo: Pixabay via Pexels
The quintessential. The extreme. The surprising. The new. Imagine school as a rich collection of problems, ideas & opportunities. A place to survey the broad scope of an area of interest.
photo: Vlad Zinculescu via Unsplash
spaces for instruction
Space for solo & one to one engagement
photo: Burcu Agar on PracticalMama.com
Unlike a speakers corner, the stage is designed for performance, a one-way presentation premised on engaging actors and a passive, receptive audience.
photo: Konrad Koller via unsplash (modified)
You know this place. it is still relevant as a blank canvas, for a brief respite, or a focused lesson, especially when safely connected to the outdoors.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/
history/2020/09/14/open-air-schools-outdoor-coronavirus/
photo: Max Klingensmith, via Flickr. ID:2809961438
Learn to understand complex systems by tracking and manipulating multiple dependent variables in real time.
photo: Minar Media Systems
The speakers corner invites rhetoric and dialogue, a two-way exchange of ideas and emotions offering lessons in persuasion and resilience. It teaches students the ethics of making us care.
photo: RichVintage via Unsplash
spaces for interaction
Intensifying interactions by putting groups of 8-12 students face to face. The Harkness method even puts these interactions in the hands of the students, a powerful exercise in paying attention.
image: “Arturum regem et equites Mensae Rotundae” by Evrard d’Espinques-Gallica, 1470
Seeing, being seen, engaging with peers or working alone, a hybrid of bleachers and stage, the tiered steps are a social device.
photo: Brownstone Boys
A place for reverie and stories to inspire curiosity and adventure.
Wiessner, P. W. (2014, September 30). Embers of society: Firelight talk among the Ju/’hoansi bushmen. PNAS 111(39)
photo: Tony Smith via Flickr
A Home Base. For a Community of Practice, a collaborative workspace offering workstations, respite, storage, breakout space, incubators and access to the outdoors.
photo: The Creative Exchange via Unsplash
A safe space for the anxious, an insulated corner for the vulnerable, a quiet place to work and socialize.
Suldo, S. et al. (2008). Relationships among stress, coping and mental health in high-achieving high school students. Psychology in the Schools 45(4). Wiley.
photo: http://www.iwallfinder.com/birds-collection/the-third-series-of-birds-photo-9997
spaces for introspection
“Your inner voice is the voice of divinity. To hear it, we need to be in solitude, even in crowded places”.
photo: Alistair Humphreys
https://alastairhumphreys.com/
Heads down work with room to personalize and make the space your own requires a desk, power and data, and maybe a little bit of privacy from your neighbor. It requires a workstation.
photo: Rustan Burlaka on Pexels
For the introvert who works best alone, the cave encourages concentration: an antidote to the relentless social exposure of school.
https://hbr.org/2013/03/give-workers-the-power-to-choose-cave
photo: Djara Cave-White Desert-Egypt by Gasser.m.issa (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Not a maze in which to get lost, but a defined ritual of a walk that encourages contemplation and creative thinking.
Oppezzo, M. et al. (2014). Give your ideas some legs: the positive effect of walking on creative thinking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 40(4), 1142-1152. Stanford University.
photo: “Green plant maze” by leungchopan, via Shutterstock
ID: 178408418
Working out ideas in public and on the fly, inviting participation and critique: this is the invitation extended by the vision wall.
photo: The Stanford d.school, Fast Company
spaces for invention
When the goal is defined, when creativity must bear on the problems at hand and when reams of ideas must be captured and organized over some extended period of time, this is when the incubator delivers.
photo: “Norwex War Room”, by LAUNCH
https://launchagency.com/category/branding-rebranding/
Less clean and clinical than a makerspace, and richer in tools and materials, the workshop serves the tinkerer and the craftsman, the mechanic and the engineer. Making and thinking is not just for vocational school.
http://www.mccann.edu/blog/the-history-of-trade-schools
photo:
“The timeworn workshop of the Eli Whitney Museum”, by Tom Murphy VII
Safer than shaping metal and wood, more focused on assembly and electronics and 3d printing, this is a space devoted to creativity accessible even to youngsters.
photo:
“Techshop’s San Francisco location in May 2015”, by Rob Ryan-Silva.
High-quality audio and video, high-capacity storage, and fiber connectivity set this venue apart from a laptop in your bedroom.
photo: Local Projects, https://localprojects.com/
Some creativity is less dependent on elaborate tools and materials. A neutral space with room to play, imagine and capture your ideas, this space empowers self-expression.
photo: Brett Sayles on Pexels
itinerant spaces
Less concerned with the dewey decimal system and more concerned with building relationships between people and books, the book cart offers curation and kizmet.
photo: Andrea Paulseth for Volume One
Why is so much learning hidden behind closed doors? Why hide it? Why not surprise and tantalize with it?
photo: Jorgen Hendriksen on Unsplash
Sometimes students need transportation to the learning experience, and sometimes the learning experience must be brought to the students; either way, you need a bus.
photo: Bonnie Savage.
design: Hassell Studio
A provocation, or a possibility, or a source of wonder and awe.
photo: Erol Ahmed, via unsplash
Wild card or welcome distraction, the wandering teacher without a home.
photo composite: Robert Anasch, Allessandro Caretto & Laura Rivera on Unsplash
intersectional spaces
Reminiscent of a certain computer store, a counter for help and tables to figure things out by yourself or in groups.
photo: Polina on Unsplash
Lots of uses and meaning, maximum utilization, minimal capital investment
photo: composite,
Jon Tyson and Tyler Nix on Unsplash
If you imagine food as performance or as adventure, then perhaps putting an auditorium in your lunchroom sounds…better.
photo: William Manning
Auditoriums alone stand empty too often. Just be careful of that expensive floor.
photo: Gottscho-Schleisner Inc. on Picryl
Resources presented to inspire curiosity, with food and drink to support a sense of community. Reading becomes social + emotional as much as personal + cerebral.
https://www.nytimes.com/1983/04/13/garden/how-to-read-and-eat-at-the-same-time.html
photo: Kate Allen, www.wherekateresides.com
spaces in the context
A resource for expertise, for contextualized experiences, for supplies and for support.
photo: Alberto Biondi on Unsplash
A park is cerebral, nature manipulated. Most importantly, parks formalize pause. Long-term memory improves and learning accelerates with measured pauses and specific brain activity between lessons.
http://www.innovationunit.org/sites/default/files/Spaced_Learning-downloadable 1.pdf
photo: “Washington Square Park”, by Kaitlin Fuelling, CaliforniaEndlessSummer.com
Suggesting abundance and freedom in the wild, it offers wildness without danger, beauty without mystery & exploration without risk. Mowed and demarcated, it offers games, competition and lessons in endurance, strength and character.
photo: Kacper Kowal on Unsplash
To nurture, study or ground yourself in productive work, to design something and build it, to wrestle with beauty, or to make something for the appreciation of others: a garden invites these learning experiences while reducing stress and motivating engagement.
http://www.realschoolgardens.org
photo:
“Hollenback Community Garden, Brooklyn, NY” by Kirk Montague
With lessons in complexity, mystery, risk, resilience, endurance, and the sublime, the wilderness instills an appreciation for all that is not conceived intellectually, with “the pattern that connects”.
Bateson, G. (2002). Mind and nature, a necessary unity. Hampton.
https://monoskop.org/images/c/c3/Bateson-Gregory-Mind-and-Nature.pdf
photo: “Onward”, by Pablo McLoud
www.pablophotography.com
keeping in mind the need for flexibility and loose fit, spaces that are:
The Dutch concept of “Open Bouwen” or “Open Building” proposed by Architect John Habraken applies, distinguishing permanent or durable building elements from short-lived, replaceable elements. A building designed with this in mind is more easily convertible and less likely to be torn down and replaced as needs change.
A space equipped for all kinds of uses, with plenty of storage and moveable furniture and resilient surfaces and some options for lighting: everything the traditional classroom aspires to be.
An operable partition, a sliding door, or a moveable wall can grow a space, but so can a building that was planned to expand without undo fuss and demolition. Designing for future growth is usually a smart bet.
Buildings don’t often feel this flexible, but they can be designed to be physically changeable. Elements that move up and down or side to side, elements that can be stacked or stored, and elements that hinge or turn are all possible.
Needs change, or sometimes a short-lived pop-up is all you need. Trouble only ensues when what is designed to be temporary somehow lingers on forever.