NPCSD Archive: Renovate or Build New?

The basic approach to teaching is changing, and the facilities must be able to support the infrastructure needed to deliver these new concepts. When considering renovations to the 1930 Middle School or creating new learning facilities, it is imperative that the heart of this decision be the learning process. To best accommodate a 21st Century Learning environment, space must be:

• functional and flexible
• open and airy
• safe and orderly

The goal of creating a facilities plan that will meet the needs of the 21st Century Learning environment is not to create a facility that would last forever, but to create a “framework within which change could take place.”

What kind of learning space is needed to prepare students for a future that no one knows what will look like? Some of the elements that researchers suggest are related to offering a 21st Century Learning environment are:

School site selection has educational, environmental, and economic implications.

• Easily and safely accessible.
• A separate well-planned parent pick-up and drop-off area and an expanded public parking area to welcome visitors.
• Buildings and grounds are compatible with the surrounding community.
• Sufficient building and grounds to facilitate the curriculum and programs.
• Environmental highlights include: natural lighting and ventilation, automatic lighting controls, carpets made from recycled and renewable materials.
• Location allows the school to take advantage of potential community resources including partnerships with local businesses and other educational institutions.

Schools serve as anchors for the community and are a reflection of community values.

• Needs of all stakeholders are accommodated on the campus with commonly used spaces easily accessible.
• Special needs identified by the community are incorporated into the master plan.

Schools are designed to enhance both teaching and learning.

• Creating of learning “pods” or sections of buildings arranged by grades or curricula or program (schools within schools or academics). (There is data that shows a significant improvement in academic performance, attendance, graduation rates, safety and security, and student involvement in “smaller” programmatically designed learning environments.
• Learning environments designed to accommodate active learning, individual or group instruction, and different learning styles.
• Today’s learning style is active rather than passive (teacher standing at the front of the room lecturing to class while the students sat quietly at desks taking notes), interactive rather than independent, integrated rather than isolated. A teacher is no longer the “sage on the stage” but rather, “the guide on the side.”
• Spaces for small group/cooperative learning, exploratory learning spaces, and teacher prep/work areas.
• The choice of furniture in new spaces also adds to flexibility, making it possible to reconfigure the spaces or create new spaces as needed.
• Schools designed to foster a sense of community among students and staff may include a central corridor bordered by academic wings. For example, on the edge of each wing, science classrooms open up onto paved outdoor areas in which students can conduct hands-on experiments. Inside the classroom, students become stewards of their environment, using monitors on the walls to check energy use.
• Hands-on experience in specialized fields with occupation or business connections.

Schools are designed with a new level of technological excellence.

• Wireless networks allowing students to work and learn anytime or anywhere, individually or in a collaborative environment.
• Libraries are technology-rich media centers.
• Distance learning programs don’t demand specifically equipped “labs” but have standard equipment in most classroom spaces.
• Audio-visual technologies like projection systems, interactive whiteboards, audio enhancements, and the use of multi-media are standard teaching and learning tools that make learning more dynamic and appealing for today’s student.
• Technology lends itself to more student collaboration doing research or working on a project.
• Innovative pedagogical practices that help students become media-savvy, creative critical thinkers and problem solvers.
• Integrate the effective use of new and emerging 21st century tools enables more powerful approaches to teaching and learning.
• Facilities that assist teachers in utilizing methodologies by which the latest digital technologies can be employed to support project-based learning, develop students’ 21st century skills, and meet specific curricular objectives.
• Promote positive facilitation of social networking-the collaborative social and interactive aspects of personal digital media, the use of blogs, wikis, podcasts, and digital movies for educational purposes.
• We are no longer isolated learners, technology gives the students connections via the Internet to information, people, colleagues, data, etc.
• Facilities that can support the integration of the 21st century skills of collaboration and information literacy.
• Facilities that allow teachers to teach technological literacy in order to “improve decision making, increase citizen participation, support a modern workforce, enhance social well-being, and narrow the digital divide.”