Future-proofing excerpt

In this last regard your facilities can become critical components of your "learning organization." This concept, outlined very eloquently by Peter Senge et al in Schools That Learn, argues that schools that serve students best are those that are constantly engaged in learning as an organization.

One might ask, "How much does your facility contribute to your organization's learning?"The isolated self-contained classroom, once the ideal for educational delivery, is now the biggest limitation we have for education in the future.

Teaching is becoming less isolated and more collaborative. Learning is becoming more personal with lap tops for all and personal learning plans, and more cooperative, experiential, and project based.

The new classroom needs to allow interconnection, varied student group sizes, and multiple simultaneous student activities. It needs to offer variety. In the future a suite of varied learning spaces will replace the row of classrooms we all know so well. Realistically, however, most educators are not yet ready to give up the turf or the familiarity of their individual classrooms.

Accepting this, current classrooms can be future-proofed by creating connections and adding variety. Classroom connections facilitate teaming, sharing, interdisciplinary learning, and project-based learning. They allow a teacher in one room to supervise students in another. Variety within and among spaces facilitates different learning styles and teaching practices.

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