JISClearningspaces.pdf. Campfires. Working in an MLE. This post was originally written for The Network – a newsletter for the New Zealand Board of Geography Teachers: Modern Learning Environments (MLE) seem to be springing up all over the country and all new builds or developments in schools now are supposed to be under this model. I have been teaching in a brand new MLE this year at Hobsonville Point Secondary School. So what is it actually like to work in an MLE? The first thing you notice when walking into an MLE is the big open spaces. No more corridors with closed doors and classrooms hidden away behind the doors.
This is the first clue as to what changes in an MLE. Everything you do is in the open. This requires you to lose a bit of ownership of “your” class. I really feel this is the biggest learning from a first year teaching in an MLE. To finish, if your school is moving to an MLE then you need to visit some to get a proper image of what they are like. Yes, MLE are different environments to teach and learn in.
Like this: MLEPlanningMatrix-PUBLISH-v1.pdf. School Design, Classroom Layout Can Heavily Affect Student Grades, Learning: Study. Great teachers, stable families and a school's location have long been said to be key to student success. But a new study out of the United Kingdom suggests that a school's physical design can improve or worsen children's academic performance by as much as 25 percent in early years. The year-long study by the University of Salford's School of the Built Environment and British architecture firm Nightingale Associates examined 751 students in 34 classrooms across seven primary schools for the 2011-2012 academic year.
Students were assessed at the beginning and end of the year for academic performance in math, reading and writing, and classrooms were rated on environmental qualities like classroom orientation, natural light, acoustics, temperature, air quality and color. The researchers found that classroom architecture and design significantly affected academic performance: Environmental factors studied affected 73 percent of the changes in student scores.
Close. Left Bank Learning: When "Work Time" Becomes "Studio Time" When you think of an artist's studio, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Large canvasses strewn haphazardly about? Globs of paint residue on every imaginable surface? Explosions of colour and organized chaos? What about the people in the studio? The artist is focused, intrinsically motivated to create -- perhaps even outwardly passionate in his process. I have always been fascinated by the artist's process. Work in Your Play, Play in Your Work Traditionally, a French café is a hotbed for conversation -- politics, art, religion, you name it. Don't forget that the café is not confined to the brick and mortar of the classroom building.
Perhaps the most noticeable shift in the climate of my class occurred when I adopted the euphemism studio time in lieu of the traditional and off-putting work time. Like any studio, it can and will get messy. 6 Tips for Adopting the Studio Model 1. 2. Have a bevy of "makery" resources on hand. 3. 4. 5. 6. Your studio can be in the cloud! Just Another Brick in the Wall: Modern Learning Environments : More Than Just Beanbags. Modern Learning Environments are a hot topic in education at the moment.
Having opened up our doors in 2013, Hobsonville Point Primary School has had more than 1200 visitors to date and many visit to experience the physical space. Often, what people come here to see and what they take away are two different things. The most common feedback we receive is that people come with the view of gathering ideas about spaces and furniture however after seeing the teaching and learning in action their focus shifts to pedagogy in their schools. To give context, Hobsonville Point School is open-plan design, with learning commons (classrooms with break-out spaces) that can cater for approximately 80-90 students. There are some specialist spaces such as a gymnasium, cooking room and science lab.
Each learning common has a fenced outdoor area, with mini performance stage and seating. The school also has a community cafeteria and covered communal outside space. Hobsonville Point Primary MLE Snapshot. Www.skolresurs.fi/files/learning zones.pdf. Every space tells a story. Is yours a place that supports the work of innovation? 10 Ideas to ponder. A few years ago I was presenting a workshop at a conference that was held in a school. The classroom allocated to me was one of the most depressing spaces I had ever encountered. As a professional learning space, I tried to do my best to reconfigure it, but the only thing I could really do was shift the orientation. What did this space tell me about itself? The teacher was the most important person in the room. There was nothing else to look at. The old posters on the wall were tatty and who knows what view there was on the other side of the black plastic that was covering the windows.
Every space tells a story. This is what’s happening in the world of work: Your next workplace may look more like your lounge room than an office. What story does that tell? What story does a learning space need to tell? Think about the spaces you work or teach in. When we talk about innovative schools, the three characteristics are the same: @anneknock Like this: Like Loading... StAC: Our Modern Learning Environment. This term 8CP have been taking part in a project based learning task that has involved recreating our classroom. We wanted to create a space that caters to 21st century learning.
A modern learning environment is where we are breaking away from a traditional classroom setup. We want to see if this improves our learning and if it allows us to have more independence and flexibility. Mrs Preston went on a course in Auckland and saw that most of the classrooms at Hobsonville Primary School and High School were open spaces where the pupils could choose who they work with and were they work. As a class we decided that we would make this our inquiry for the term. Firstly, we compared 21st century learning environments to traditional classrooms. Secondly, Mrs Preston put us into groups of 6.
To help us decide what class plan we were going to use we trialed all 5 designs. As a class we also identified what key competencies we were doing. By Jamie Te Whata 8C. How to Run an Iowa BIG: Our Space #gowhalephants. Teaching This begins a series of posts about how one might start a totally project-based, competency-driven, asynchronous schooling environment with a Creative Commons Licensed pedagogical model. We call ourselves Iowa BIG, and yes we know that sounds a bit pretentious, but hey, my official title is Headmaster Cornally, so, deal. Through our initiatives, we deliver core academic credit in English, math, science, and social studies to 70 students who represent a demographically accurate cross section of our community with 3.0 FTE (that’s a 21 S:T, folks). It all begins with the physical space.
We don’t have any classrooms, and we’re located in Vault Co-working, a space in the heart of Iowa’s Creative Corridor (an economic region anchored by Cedar Rapids and Iowa City) Entrance to Vault This is all very intentional. The stairs leading up to Vault and our school It’s almost bizarre to watch students acclimate to this environment.
Our eat-in kitchen for student and faculty use. Applying Design to Education | Alastair Blyth. In designing an environment for learning we have to imagine better ways of being. The same could be said for designing education itself. Interior of High Tech High, San Diego, California I once asked a student at High Tech High in San Diego, California what advice she would give those designing learning environments. She replied: “Create somewhere relaxing and bright, so you can open the windows and see out; you know, somewhere you actually want to be for 7 hours a day!” I asked another student. High Tech High began life 14 years ago as a single charter school (a US school that receives public funding but operates independently) setting out to challenge conventional schooling wisdom and establish a better way of training an ethnically diverse and often disadvantaged student body to meet the high tech skills needs of the economy.
Since I first visited High Tech High over five years ago, it has grown from three to a cluster of six schools. Design principles at High Tech High Like this: Creating Education by Design | Alastair Blyth. Design is too easily dismissed as ‘nice to have if you can afford it’. Yet pretty well everything we use from tax forms to education involves design. We should be smarter and consciously apply design thinking to these things. Benefits of design: A creative environment for learning at Northern Beaches Christian School, Sydney Venerated German industrial designer, Dieter Rams, came up with Ten Principles of good design. My thanks to Karissa Rosenfield (click here) who sets out the principles in full, so I will not repeat them in full here. Good Design… …is Innovative: The design process, however you define that, is one of problem solving. …makes a Product Useful: It is surely true that utility must be the ultimate purpose of any product of design. …is Aesthetic: This is the principle that might cause the most debate.
…makes A Product Understandable: Design should be for people not just a sales pitch to consumers. …is Unobtrusive: In a way you shouldn’t notice it. Like this: Like Loading...