Imagine you are the President or Dean of a new school. This school is going to b
ID: 401006 • Letter: I
Question
Imagine you are the President or Dean of a new school. This school is going to be completely mobile and wireless class for the future. Describe and design your school, taking into consideration the following: How will lectures be given? How will questions be asked and answered? How will assignments be given and collected? How will group projects be performed? How will students separate work and non-work time? How will exams be administered? Will this type of class be better or worse than a traditional class? Will security measures be necessary for the wireless classes? If so, what measures will you put in place to protect the content?Explanation / Answer
New technology equipment and tools, state of the art building materials and methods, and experimental teaching practices are all impacting today's K-12 classroom. Districts nationwide are struggling to patch together learning environments that they think represent the future of learning at the elementary, middle school, and high school levels. As they adopt campus-wide IT infrastructures, invest in classroom technology, and test out alternatives to traditional learning spaces, the final results of all this innovation remains to be seen.
To help decipher that code and give principals, administrators, IT directors, and teachers an insider look into what might be coming a few years down the road, THE Journal asked a half a dozen educational experts for their take on three different key concerns: what the classrooms will look like, who will pay for them, and whether we'll ever see them during our lifetimes.
Envisioning the Classroom of the Future: What Does It Look Like?
Susan Smith has been designing educational facilities for 18 years. During that time this vice president of Dallas-based architectural design firm Corgan Associates has seen significant changes in the way K-12 facilities are constructed and utilized. At a high, campus-wide level, Smith said energy conservation--made possible through more environmentally inconsequential construction materials and methods--is top of mind right now for schools. Some districts, for example, want net zero campuses that rely on alternative sources like solar and wind technology to generate as much energy as the schools use.
Smith said she expects to see more net zero campuses being built in the future and said the green philosophy will make its way into the classroom itself. Simple moves like minimizing the number of electrical outlets in a room, for example, help encourage the use of charging stations. Lighting sensors that adapt to the amount of light that's coming in through windows and geothermal technology that heats water for bathrooms and the cafeteria will also gain in popularity, Smith predicted.
The classroom of the future will also be more flexible than its predecessors. "We are seeing a movement towards more project-based learning and that requires much more adaptable and flexible physical space than we're used to seeing in K-12," said Smith. Expect to see more spaces that can quickly be rearranged to accommodate individual study, small group learning, and even collaboration across different classes and subjects.
A space meant to accommodate 30 students, for example, would be built with moveable walls that could be quickly opened to allow multiple instructors to teach to 60 or more students in a large group.
"The focus will be on interchangeability," said Smith, "and that requires a break down of the traditional classroom walls to make room for more innovative learning setups."
"Instead of students sitting in five or six straight rows of desks," said Tim Uhl, principal at Holy Rosary School in Tacoma, WA, "they'll be sitting in pods and then moving back into rows when it's time to test." Achieving that level of flexibility will require most K-12 schools to buy table-type or other desk styles to replace their current stock, said Uhl.
Uhl said he also sees the whiteboard gaining more visibility in the classroom of the future. The placement of that equipment in the classroom will also be important, said Uhl, whose school is in the process of a campus-wide whiteboard installation. "We're centering them at the point of most visibility on the longest classroom wall," said Uhl, "as opposed to on the narrow end of the room where most instructors have traditional taught from."
Teaching aids like traditional marker boards and interactive white boards will continue to have a place in the classroom, said Smith, but these products will probably be positioned differently than they are in today's learning spaces. "We're hearing from schools that want to cover entire walls with marker boards instead of using them as a small focal point at the front of the class," she said. Other key pieces of technology that will be prominent in tomorrow's classrooms will include tablet and laptop computers, interactive whiteboards and projectors, and wall-mounted, flat-panel monitors.
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