Designing Learning Spaces

I had the privilege of being the MC at the recent LENZ conference in Wellington. It was refreshing to reconnect with a group of educators and architects to focus on developing shared understandings about the relationship between great pedagogy and the design of our learning spaces. Keynote speakers Julia Atkin and Nicola Ngarewa were each highly provocative in their own unique ways, and the school tours provided an opportunity to highlight the links between pedagogy and learning space design in very practical ways. 

Julia, whose PhD and research is strongly grounded in the learning sciences, reflected on her nearly 30 years of working with schools to develop a strong alignment between their beliefs and practices, and how this translates into everything we do in schools – from the arrangement of curriculum, our teaching schedules and the design and use of learning spaces. With reference to the notion of innovative learning spaces (ILEs), Julia pointed to the root meaning of the word ‘innovation’, meaning ‘to add value’. In other words, simply doing something new because it is following a trend or appears exciting shouldn’t be the reason for pursuing innovation – the goal should be to add value to what we are doing. Thus, with innovative learning environments the purpose isn’t simply to create great looking architecture – it must be to add value to the things we do as educators – and to the purpose of what we are doing. The challenge here is understand what the value is that we’re endeavouring to add. If we’re simply wanting to replicate the practices of the past then the environments of the past will do – and we can expect the same outcomes.

Nicola’s bookend talk highlighted how this traditional approach hasn’t been successful to a significant number of learners. She grounded her presentation in her personal story, of growing up as Māori in a Māori community. She masterfully wove her story into a challenge to those present to recognise the importance of ensuring everyone in our learning communities can ‘see’ themselves in our places of learning, that their language, culture and identity is recognised and embraced. She pointed to the impact of many of our current practices, drawn from a colonial view of education, alienate many learners because this connection isn’t there – and how the unrecognised nature of privilege enjoyed by many leaders and decision makers in the system means that these issues aren’t being addressed as they should. Nicola exhorted us all to ensure these issues are at the front of our minds when considering the design and use of learning spaces also.

In addition to my role as MC, I also presented a workshop titled “It’s about system, not structure” – drawing from the content of a recent blog post I wrote. In the workshop I explored how many education reforms swing wildly between extremes, searching for silver bullet solutions to wickedly complex problems. I argued that in the midst of this turmoil we need to shift from focusing purely on structural ‘silver bullets’ including curriculum, timetables and classroom design, to embracing a broader, systems thinking approach. We need to understand the broader ecosystem within which schools operate, and how any one part of the system is integrally linked to others, meaning that when we re-design any part (structure) of the system we have to be mindful of its impact on the other parts. Our challenge currently is that we’ve got lots of ‘structures’ thinkers and few ‘systems thinkers’ in places where key decisions are being made. When that happens we’re operating in the outer ring of Julias ‘circles’, and neglecting to stoke the fire of the centre ring where our core beliefs and values are identified and used to guide what we do further out.

The day provided me with an opportunity to reflect on a lot of what I have been involved with over the past 15 years or so – particularly since the CHCH earthquakes where the rebuilding of schools became a priority for many communities. I thought about the excitement shared as these communities contemplated how their new learning spaces might be designed, with lots of conversation about the limitations of traditional, ‘egg-crate’ classrooms and the opportunities to create spaces that were fit-for-purpose with more contemporary approaches to teaching and learning, for example, problem-based or project-based learning.

I thought about the amount of negative publicity there has been about the design of such schools over the past few years – with some schools now choosing to put walls up to separate ‘classes’ etc. Many are quick to blame poor design on the ‘idealism’ of architects or the ‘cost-saving’ mentality of bureaucrats, and the ‘misguided philosophy‘ of some education leaders. Arguments are made, for example, are that theres no evidence that a modern learning environment is ever superior to a single cell classroom and that these were simply a foolish experiment.

I acknowledge that, in the process, there have been a lot of questionable practices and decisions. For example, the Ministry of Education’s practice of creating an establishment board to come up with the vision and values for a new school before appointing an establishment principal simply beggars belief in terms of all that is known about the importance of the principal role in forming and sustaining the vision of the school. From personal experience I’ve seen the downside of this where, after months of negotiation and coming up with the vision, mission and values statements to inform the building design, the establishment board appoints a principal only to find that person comes with their own beliefs and motivations and begins behaving and leading in ways that are completely different to what was imagined. Further, the failure to provide any form of leadership guidance and coaching for these new principals means that the leadership of these schools is left open to chance more that evidence-informed design.

Thinking about evidence, I reflected on the claims about the lack of research, and the work of the Melbourne University’s Innovative Learning Environments and Teacher Change (ILETC) project. Despite being recognised internationally for its systematic research in this are for more than a decade, it seems their research evidence flies under the radar of many in positions of leadership in the NZ system. Their very impressive series of research outputs is available for anyone to access and download – in fact, there are at least a couple of NZ researchers who have earned PhDs through this programme and contributed to the research.

I have been intrigued to read their summary finding from their research question 3 which asks “What correlations can be established between ILEs and high levels of student deep learning, and high incidence of favourable teacher mind frames?” Their key finding 3.4 states

“While ILEs can be linked to greater deep learning by students, they have no impact on surface learning – ILEs assist deeper learning while not reducing surface learning.”

Perhaps there’s a clue here as to why we find so many schools looking to return to ‘egg-crate’ classrooms structures – particularly in the current climate in NZ (and elsewhere) where a singular focus on the foundational skills is being promoted (and I strongly agree this needs to be a key focus) – but at the exclusion of a focus on the development of ‘deeper learning’ that emphasises the importance of competencies and dispositions that will ensure our young learners are able to thrive and be contributors in a future world, rather than simply having the foundational skills required to perform routine tasks in employment.

Thinking then about how we might apply all of this thinking to the design of learning spaces, I found the Edutopia article titled The Science of Classroom Design really useful. It’s a summary of findings from a study led by team of researchers led by University of Salford professor Peter Barrett that analysed the design of 153 classrooms across 27 elementary schools in the United Kingdom. It provides a comprehensive, all-in, research-based look at the design of effective learning spaces – including everything from factor such as light, ventilation, acoustics etc, to catering for neuro-diversity and different approaches to learning.

For example, I found this paragraph from the section on flexibility really helpful:

Teachers sometimes chafe at so-called flexible classrooms that look like they were designed by the House of Dior. Beautiful classrooms, the teachers argue persuasively, are not necessarily successful learning environments, and flexibility as a standard of classroom design should be judged by factors like versatility (they support multiple uses) and modifiability (they allow for “active manipulation and appropriation”), according to one review of modern classrooms.

Flexibility has been quoted often as a reason for opening up classrooms to create more space for a variety of learning activity to take place. But it’s the ‘digging deeper’ to be able to articulate what we mean by flexibility that becomes important – as explained here, in terms of versatility or modifiability for example.

The findings of this report align well with what the ILETC group has published and deserve much greater exploration by anyone who may be considering a new school build or modification to existing buildings, and is genuinely interesting in understanding what the research has to say about the relationship between learning space and pedagogy.

Ultimately, creating effective learning environments is about more than just aesthetics. It’s about understanding the complex interplay between pedagogy, culture, and space. By grounding our decisions in research and focusing on adding value to student learning, we can design spaces that truly support the success of all students.

The relationship between pedagogy and learning space design is complex but crucial. Let’s work together to build a future where every learner can thrive. Join the conversation by sharing your insights and questions in the comments below.