The World is Our Classroom!

Learning design includes deciding “where” learning will occur. Everyone knows by now that learning doesn’t have to happen inside a classroom, although the traditional system leadership has worked hard the past three years trying to convince us otherwise.

In June of 2022, architect Randy Fielding, founding partner at Fielding International, a team of architects and educators, wrote a guest column for Getting Smart titled “How to Design a Learning Commons.” Here are some excerpts from that article:

“Problem: Most common areas [inside traditional schools] are designed as secondary spaces, a place for breaking out from the classroom. But as schools transform from a traditional, classroom-based approach to a learner-centered approach. Common areas become essential hubs of learning; and as such, require carefully orchestrated design.”

“In recent years, a learner-centered model of education has become increasingly popular. As a result, we at Fielding International see an emerging trend in the vision statements of many schools: there is an emphasis on multiple pathways toward excellence and achievement for all students. These statements often go on to call our specific student characteristics and skills such as holistic well-being, critical thinking, creative problem solving, technological and media literacy, communication, and collaboration. At the same time, most educators have begun to acknowledge that the physical learning environment is a key factor in supporting their educational vision – the environment can catalyze, or hinder, desired competencies.”

“One type of space that comes up again and again as having the potential to disrupt the isolated nature of the classroom model and align with the goals schools have today is the Learning Commons. A well-designed Learning Commons supports each of the competencies schools are trying to foster in their students; thus, it is an essential resource for any school seeking to achieve learner-centered visions. Despite people wanting access to Commons, they are often poorly designed and underutilized. So why do people want them in the first place?”

A well-designed Learning Commons is foundational for creating fluidly connected spaces that foster collaborative, interdisciplinary, and self-directed learning. A well-designed Commons features spatial diversity which makes it possible to simultaneously facilitate learning experiences that incorporate a range of learning modalities. Spatial fluidity plus spatial diversity equals a kind of spatial agility that responds to the real-time needs of kids and adults alike, making them ideal places to cultivate dynamic communities built on relationships, belonging, and agency. So, if Learning Commons are so beneficial, and people actively want them, what can history tell us about why they are frequently ineffective?”

“As early as the open classroom moment of the 1970s and later in the middle school pod movement of the 1980s, the idea of communal learning areas was explored. Ultimately, these explorations failed for numerous reasons, many of which were spatial, including a lack of spatial diversity and limited connections to the outdoors (just to name a couple); but some of the reasons can also be attributed to a lack of professional resources and educational programming in support of the model.”

“In the decades since architects and educators first attempted to disrupt the notion that the classroom should be the primary place for learning, we’ve made significant progress regarding how we can design the physical environment to be an educational asset in the learning process. This article will focus on the spatial design components necessary for a well-designed Learning Commons.”

Fielding lays out six key elements for thriving Learning Commons:

Strong indoor-outdoor connections

Visual and permeable connections to adjacent spaces

Diverse activity zones

Varies furnishings, fixtures, and finishes

Sound attenuation

Access to water and storage

I like Fielding’s Learning Commons concept. I just find it very limiting for the year we currently live in.

I worked with a woman awhile back who wrote this for a foundation proposal our non-profit was submitting:

“The world is now our classroom.”

How true that is, and how far we are from allowing our young learners to define, plan, execute, and evaluate their learning in a new classroom known as the world.

Fielding’s six key elements can be found anywhere and anytime. We don’t need to wait for architects or educators to design the space. The space is already available. It’s known as the world.

We ran a personalized learning lab school inside the Houston Museum District several years ago. The museums offered Fielding’s six elements and more.

“Learning Commons” can be found anywhere and anytime – in rural areas, during out of school times, in-person and online.

We need to expand our thinking to benefit our young learners and their learning futures. If we don’t, we will limit learning for our most cherished future – our children.

Friday News Roundup tomorrow. SVB