Future of Schools their age regardless of their distinct learning needs . It was built to optimize efficiency for universal schooling in an era where that had never been done before . It was not built to optimize learning .
Because the disruption of blended learning is emerging to a large extent within the physical architecture of these existing “ egg-crate ” model schools , this architecture could allow the traditional classroom to harness online learning as a sustaining innovation to preserve itself and co-opt the disruption for a long time to come .
This is the challenge before school designers over the next several years : to create new designs that harness the power of new learning models for years to come , even as those new models are still in their infancy , and to avoid doubling down on the traditional school design that would harden the factory model of schooling .
New school designs
For many , particularly those who are seeking to bring sustaining improvements to the traditional classroom model , the basic layout of eggcrate classrooms may be perfectly adequate . Many blended programs , however , are choosing to rearrange their furniture and physical space to align with the principles of student agency , flexibility , and choice that are at the core of their new models .
For example , the Khan Lab School , an independent school founded by the
MICHAEL HORN will discuss how changes in teaching and learning affect the future of schools during the Opening Plenary Session on November 7 at EDspaces .
renowned Sal Khan in California , has converted the bottom floor of an office park into a learning studio . There are no interior walls in the studio ; it feels more like a one-room schoolhouse , in keeping with Khan ’ s book The One-World Schoolhouse , than like a standard school building . The open space gives students the flexibility they need to complete collaborative term projects , such as starting a greeting card business
Where
TECHNOLOGY ,
SPACE , and
PEDAGOGY converge Tampa , Tampa FL | November , FL 7-9 7-9 , 2018 , or building a computer from scratch , while providing distinct spaces for individual work online or small-group instruction .
In Chicago , Intrinsic Schools , a public charter school , operates in a building that Larry Kearns , an architect at Wheeler Kearns Architects , designed . When designing it , he said it was key to turn off the autopilot switch and focus on the activities that fuel learning . Because “ learning is monopolized by large-group direct instruction , all you need are cellular classrooms , with rows of desks focused on a single instructor ” in a traditional school , he told me . But because blended-learning models use multiple modes of learning , they need spaces designed to support different modalities .
When designing the building for Intrinsic , Kearns first spent a year prototyping ideas with the schools in multiple pilots in temporary spaces . Without the feedback from those pilots , he said , the ultimate learning space would have looked totally different and been based on assumptions that proved false .
In Kearns ’ words , the school looks like the following :
Each grade at Intrinsic , which includes eight instructors and up to 180 students , is accommodated in a pair of interconnected “ pods ,” each with its own acoustically isolated room . Each pod is an open studio
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