Leadership magazine Nov/Dec 2015 V45 No 2 | Page 32

Building a community while managing behavior is a balancing act, yet harkens us back
to the one-room schoolhouses with different
ages all encompassed under one roof, where
differentiation and true understanding was
a focal point.
Kevin Silberberg, superintendent in
the Panama-Buena Vista School District,
knows the importance of learner-centered
schools. “The technology promise of today is
about personalization,” he said. “For us our
goals center around literacy – it’s the ‘center
of our universe.’ If students are not at gradelevel literacy, we can remediate. If students
are above grade level, we can accelerate. The
old models of adding more curriculum, pullouts and aides is too expensive and have too
many variables. Districtwide courseware,
software that is driven by formative assessments, and professional development for our
teachers is the direction we are going.”

Looking forward
We may not know the technologies of the
future, or even the professions for which we
prepare the students who enter our doors

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Leadership

every day. What we do know is that we are
the innovative designers in our schools who
need to prepare students for these environments. We will still need places to house
students, emerging technologies, and some
sort of furniture.
The classrooms and meeting spaces we
design for students need to be as dynamic
as the world around them. The impacts of
learner centered environments on student
learning make a difference, from technology
to furniture to the ambiance. As we design
these new workplaces, we are revolutionizing our schools to help students better manage their attention and thinking. n

K. Kobbacy (2013), An holistic, multi-level
analysis identifying the impact of classroom design on pupils’ learning. Building and Environment, Vol. 59, p. 678-689.
•  Pearlman, Bob (2014, Dec. 1), Designing New Learning Environments to Support
21st Century Skills (web log post), available at
http://tinyurl.com/pcr2mf2.
•  Robinson, Sir Ken (2015), Creative
School: The Grassroots Revolution That’s Transforming Education, New York: Viking Press.
•  Zhao, Yong (2012), World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students, Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin
Press.

References
•  Alliance for Excellent Education (2012,
May), Culture Shift: Teaching in a Learning Centered Environment Powered by Digital Learning; (2012, January), The Digital
Learning Imperative: How Technology and
Teaching Meet Today’s Education Challenges;
and (2009), High School Dropouts in America.
Washington, D.C.
•  Barrett, P.S.; Zhang, Y.; Moffat, J.; and

Lisa Gonzales is superintendent in
the Portola Valley School District, a
#FutureReady superintendent and
ACSA vice president. Charles Young is
superintendent in the Benicia Unified
School District. Both are members
of TICAL, California’s Technology
Information Center for Administrative
Leadership.