The world outside of education is rapidly changing, and it is our responsibility to ensure our students are well prepared for the challenges they will face.
To support students along their journey, we must scrutinize both our pedagogical practice and our learning spaces with 21st century eyes. Do our current educational methods and learning spaces work for what we know about learning today, or are they more reflective of what we knew about learning in the past?
We need to undertake our facilities review with a “form follows function” approach, within which teaching and learning shape the learning space rather than the other way around. The review needs to be informed by the following considerations:
- We must unshackle teachers from their traditional position in front of the classroom, and encourage them to explore new settings for teaching and learning.
- We must unite the disciplines.
- We must create spaces for large groups, for collaboration and for individual learning.
- We must create active spaces and quiet spaces.
- We must think about ways of bringing local and global community into the classroom.
- We must design spaces in which our students can engage in hands-on learning.
- We must create open spaces in which students can exhibit their work and to which the public can come to review that work.
- We must ensure our learning spaces are able to draw in outside learning opportunities.
- We must develop learning spaces that are adaptable, changeable, personal and movable.
- We must install technology that can simulate real-world situations, and design or retrofit our schools so that today’s reality doesn't limit tomorrow’s possibilities.
A strategic facilities review is really about preparing spaces for a world we don’t yet know, and about giving our students the best chance for success they can possibly have in an ever-changing world.