My ticket is booked for Vienna, where the Architekturzentrum Wien is currently exhibiting "Flying Classrooms."
An excerpt from the exhibition promotional material:
"The rooms we learn and teach in have hardly changed in over a century. The classroom is still 9 metres x 7 metres in size and the primary location for lessons that are held at hourly intervals - even though teachers and architects agree that contemporary teaching methods require appropriately diverse forms of space and that these would subsequently have a positive impact on the interaction and the school day of pupils and teachers alike."
http://www.azw.at/page.php?node_id=3&page_id=698&lang_id=en
With new teaching methods and technologies available, the question must be asked - what does the spatial future of education look like? Does the traditional classroom still hold value for students today?
There's no need for the classroom to change as long as the classroom operates in a traditional manner. The teacher teaches and the students listen. If that is not the desirable end-state then change should be implemented.
ReplyDeleteThis is awesome. I am disappointed that I am not the first ever person to leave a comment on your blog. Starting and maintaining a blog is on my bucket list!
ReplyDeleteI do think that classrooms need to offer more for today's students. I feel that with the diversity of children, we need to offer more options. Traditional classrooms work for some students but not all students are able to learn in that setting. I think there needs to be other options available.
xoxo
mom
I can't wait to read what you think after visiting the exhibit. I'm currently teaching 8th grade Earth Science and I feel so constrained by the classroom. Students need more kinesthetic experiences, which is hard to provide when you don't have much space and only really have tables and chairs. I hope that you draft up some classroom space ideas!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing.
The funding in our school district is so constrained that the AP Physics class has 42 students, not enough tables and chairs, and no room for the experiments. Hence, the students observe the experiments instead of doing them. This is no way to learn. I like the idea of moveable walls to make more space when you need it. How about something like the motor homes that have walls that can be pushed out after they park? Moved in in the winter to keep the heat /cooling bills down (a MN problem) on non lab days, etc.
ReplyDeleteThank you everyone for your comments, I sincerely appreciate the input - keep them coming!
ReplyDelete@Andrea, please feel free to email me directly and we can discuss specific ideas for your classroom space.