Let’s all agree that it is in the national interest for our schools to do the best job possible of teaching our children what they will need to know to be successful in life. Let’s also face it that real improvement in how kids are taught is probably not going to come about through government action. It seems every time politicians give a buck for education they also tack on requirements and hoops for schools to jump through in order to get another buck.
Experience has shown that most of these (probably) well-intentioned yardsticks for measuring the effectiveness of spending on education end up creating a raft of unanticipated consequences. For example, you can ask most any teacher about No Child Left Behind or Common Core, and they’ll tell you the testing requirements included in the programs inhibit rather than improve their ability to effectively teach.
Educators now have access to findings from all sorts of fields of scientific research such as neuroscience and behavioral psychology. Much of the research on how the brain processes information and how memory works, points to the benefits of a more Socratic method of teaching with open ended questions, deep dives with multiple sources of stimulation, including active hands-on experimentation. Research in the behavioral sciences underscores the importance of discussion and collaboration in fostering better learning and a richer understanding.
Innovation is the result of learning and then applying knowledge in a novel way to solve a problem. As David Kelly, founder of IDEO likes to say, “Innovation is about finding good problems to solve.” And the best corporations accept that innovation is greatly enhanced by encouraging collaboration, discussion, deep dives and teamwork.
The principles of learning apply whether in school or at work. The trend in office design clearly indicates that these principles are increasingly being applied to corporate workplaces. And research by both the A&D community and furnishings manufacturers points convincingly to improved employee engagement and productivity when spaces are designed and furnished in a way that creates identity and builds a sense of community. Spaces that support collaboration, support technology and provide the ability to quickly adapt spaces to ever changing needs appear to enable better learning.
For a variety of reasons the trend toward active, collaborative learning is advancing faster in the business world than in the classroom. This may be due to the fact that businesses don’t require an act of the state to approve and allocate the money. Or it may be that the motivation to try new things in order to better compete is stronger in the business world. It seems ironic that the academic world, where much of the scientific research happens, lags in implementing the changes suggested by the research.
To learn what’s actually going on in the education sector at the front of the movement toward spaces that better support the way we learn, we turned to three companies that are actively involved in advocating for it: Steelcase, KI and Smith System.
We asked Mike Risdall, director of marketing at Smith System what his company is seeing in the marketplace with respect to adoption of the new way of planning classrooms. As you might expect, he said there is a great deal of interest in the concepts but that there are constraints that vary widely from project to project, including lack of knowledge of the newer thinking, to budgetary problems, to plain old resistance to change. “But if we can get a project committee to tour a flexible space that supports technology and collaboration and that gives them the tools they need, they get very excited about making a change.”
We know Steelcase leads with research, so we asked Sean Corcorran, general manager, Steelcase Education how it goes about the research that informs its product development. He said, “I think about it as ‘before, during and after’ research. The ‘Before’ research we do is really need-finding. We read a lot. We really try to understand what the experts are saying about unmet needs with regard to trends in pedagogy or methods of teaching, or about neuroscience and how the brain works and how people actually learn at the cellular or molecular level. And then we do our own primary research: observations, interviews – going into the specific context, whether it’s a classroom or a faculty area or an administrative/leadership area and actually observing what’s going on; looking for gaps or barriers to smooth functioning. We do video ethnography, take pictures and in general build empathy for the people and look for problems to solve.”
“The ‘during research’ refers to the work we do with users during the development of solutions. We do user studies, usability studies, the testing of prototypes, etc. and then in the ‘after’ phase we do post occupancy evaluation research. We try to understand how well our solutions are working; are they solving the problems we identified upfront.”
When we asked Mr. Corcorran for examples of how all that research is paying off he referred us to three videos on a website Steelcase Education has developed as part of a grant program wherein it works with applicant schools to develop model “Active Learning Centers” for grades 6 through 12 or for colleges and universities. Quoting from the website, “…each Active Learning Center grant covers the furniture, integrated technology, design, installation and post-occupancy measurement tool for one of four classroom types designed for 24-32 students.”
Here is a link to the videos. You’ll find them at the bottom of the page and we highly recommend all three. Steelcase ALC Grants
Of the manufactures that play in both the educational and workplace furniture markets, KI is probably the market share leader in school furniture. So we spoke with Ki’s VP of Design, Product Marketing and Pallas Textiles, Shawn Green.
Discussing the state of the art from Ki’s perspective he said, “We’re seeing a focus on highly engaged classrooms where the students have the flexibility to move around and where teachers have the flexibility to conduct classes using multiple teaching styles. But we think the product solutions that are currently on the market still have a way to go. In November we will launch a revolutionary seating platform that will go a long way toward supporting various seating postures in a way that is consistent with the variability of the classroom.”
We believe that spaces designed to support and promote new teaching styles, the adoption of technology and engaged students can contribute significantly to the goal of improving our nation’s education system. We’ve been impressed with the vigor with which the companies we talked to are trying to move the process along. We encourage designers to be familiar with the research underlying the new ways of planning classrooms and to push the boundaries when they have the chance to design them.