Essentials Magazine Essentials Spring 2018 | Page 26

Learning Spaces
FLEXIBLE may translate into several
design opportunities. Solutions are of-
ten categories as items with castors, fair-
ly lightweight tables easily moved, and
items that are ‘wrenchable,’ but all with
predictable and set patterns for alter-
ation. An example of wrenchable might
be an open office cubicle situation. It
can be moved, but not easily, but it is
not built into the building. The chal-
lenge with ‘flexible’ is that most often
furnishings are heavy, or awkward and
thus not easily reconfigured. So, guess
what? They don’t get reconfigured. In
fact, these flexible places become more
fixed just for the fact that items are not
easy to move.
knowledge (i.e., one-to-many), and
may utilize a projector and screen
to support a visual connection to the
content accompanying the verbal
one. Often we think of the design
solutions as fixed seating, (see FIG-
URE 2) or tiered lecture halls. Here
and places within a room(s) are need-
ed to orchestrate these situations
successfully — a flexible solution is
best here (refer back to FIGURE 3).
Fig. 3.Flexible / Multi-modal-style Mode
Fig. 2. Fixed / Lecture-style Mode
ing, and of course the building’s entire
structure and infrastructure.
translate to a swivel seat on a chair, a
clicker that allows for a digital screen
to be changed, and lights/temperature
changed with the flick of a control –
perhaps like a Google home devise.
Little movement or rearrangement is
required in a fluid situation, and all are
not predictable. Where students choose
to move in a chair with wheels is not
necessarily in a specific pattern. If these
examples illustrate a ‘design language’
for educators to interpret, how might
designers interpret the educators’ needs
with a variety of teaching practices?
Teaching practices have a contin-
uum of sorts as well from the very
traditional lecture to a simultaneous,
multi-modal strategy, to a fully opera-
tional tinker/maker/production space
as some of the most creative. Each
of these practices elicits strategies
and places that must support them.
Types of strategies might also include
problem-based, project-based, inqui-
ry-based, etc. approaches to deliver
content. Each evokes a particular
behavior for both the student and the
educator, and over time these behav-
iors become ‘conditioned,’ or expect-
ed. Some examples are next.
A lecture as we have come to
understand it is teacher-centric. The
teacher comes in prepared to share
26 essentials | spring 2018
students should be in active listen-
ing mode, perhaps taking notes, but
nothing more is typically expected.
In the second practice described, the
multi-modal strategy (see FIGURE
3), and it could be likened to a one-
room schoolhouse, or more stu-
dent-focused. Thus, in a simultaneous,
multi-modal strategy, multiple learn-
ing activity situations, and content de-
livery approaches are going on at the
same time and in fact some students
may be leading certain components
while the educator leads others. This
type of one-to-one, peer-to-peer and
small group to whole group situations
strategies are incorporated. Here the
educator is more of the ‘guide on the
side’ acting as a facilitator allowing
students to discover on their own
in a pre-planned and purposeful
strategy(ies). Maker / Tinker spaces
may be grouped into this sector as
well. However, the teaching prac-
tice model here might require more
of an ‘apprentice / master’ model.
Equipment items may be fixed into
place, but the process of the making
involves moving from one area to
another in order to actually finish a
particular item. Thus, multiple types
of postures, equipment, technologies
FLUID in the design sense might
Depending upon the type and more
importantly the equipment required;
a balance must be struck between
students being on their own and the
educator directing their discovery.
For a fluid solution, the most
student-centric mode, the simplest
and most impactful furniture solution
is a swivel chair (see Figure 4). The
individual does not have to recon-
figure anything and can simply and
easily move slightly or swivel entirely
without getting out of one’s seat. He/
she can connect to others, or see con-
tent wherever it might be presented.
This final scenario acts in much the
same way as the multimodal ones,
however it is fully student-centric
with the teaching practice strategy
focused on the experience of each