7 Resources for Designing Innovative Learning Spaces

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With back to school right around the corner, I know many educators are thinking about how to make upgrades to their learning spaces for the new school year. The design of our classrooms can have a significant impact on learning. 

The choices you make in setting up your classroom will send a message to your students from the first day of school. Students will instantly draw conclusions: Is this a welcoming place? Will I work with others? Am I valued? What kind of learning will I be doing here? 

I believe it's important to create an environment that values students, gives them in a voice in the classroom, and creates a space that is forward-thinking and modern. 

Although your school may not be able to purchase expensive furnishings, there are things you can do to design on a dime. I know several teachers in our building found ways to do inexpensive upgrades to their classrooms. 

Here are seven articles that I found helpful in thinking about design upgrades for our school.

6 Must-Have Classroom Spaces for Project-Based Learning

By: Danish Kurani. These six spaces facilitate learning that goes beyond the realm of the traditional classroom and can be created in almost any type of building. Whether you're planning a new building or updating the one you're in, these are possible for you.

Designing Learner-Centered Spaces -- THE Journal

Learning Spaces Learning spaces must become learner-centered. Editor's note: The following is excerpted from a chapter of the book, " Learning Transformed: 8 Keys to Designing Tomorrow's Schools," published by ASCD in June. The authors and publisher have given their permission to republish portions of chapter 4, "Designing Learner-Centered Spaces."

Tips for Creating Wow-Worthy Learning Spaces

"Look at your learning space with 21st-century eyes: Does it work for what we know about learning today, or just for what we knew about learning in the past?" -The Third Teacher Does your classroom mirror the rectilinear seating arrangement popular in Sumerian classrooms, circa 2000 BCE?

6 ways to personalize learning with flexible seating

Putting students at the center of learning takes a double commitment. One to ensure that instruction and learning address distinct student needs, interests and aspirations, and one to provide spaces that support a student-centered program. It also requires educators to consider the various teaching formats they use and creating learning environments to support them.

Flexible Seating and Student-Centered Classroom Redesign

I'm a firm believer in keeping the focus on what's really important: the students. If student motivation and higher engagement is truly the desired end game, then we as teachers must adapt right along with our students in our classrooms.

Three Ways to Design Better Classrooms and Learning Spaces

The problems that plague education around the world aren't the result of a lack of attention or care. Parents, business leaders, political leaders and educators in countries everywhere are dedicated to improving how they educate their people. Every year, billions of dollars are spent on education initiatives in curriculum and teaching practices.

6 Ideas for Classroom Design

As the new school year nears or begins for you, consider how the design of your classroom can have a huge impact on you and your students. Try these ideas to design your classroom this year. To learn more, check out one of our previous posts: Purposeful Learning Spaces.

What are you plans for upgrading your classroom for back to school? How will you use your space to inspire learning? I want to hear from you. Leave a comment below or respond on or .

How To Have Killer Meetings That Get Results

I recently read Death by Meeting by Patrick Lencioni. This book is a must read for any leader who wants to improve the quality of meetings in his or her organization. Every team could benefit from the insights shared in this leadership fable. 

The problem with meetings is that they are often boring, and they don't usually get the desired results. There are a couple of reasons this happens. I'd like to share some of what I learned from Lencioni's book and encourage you to read it if you would like to have killer meetings instead of death by meetings.

Two Problems With Meetings

Major Problem #1 is Lack of Conflict. But not the bad kind of conflict. NOT personal conflict. It’s the kind we have in the plot of a movie or novel. There is a problem to be solved. It drives the meeting forward in a narrative fashion. There is a story. There will be conflict between the ‘characters’ in the meeting, but we want it to be constructive conflict around important issues directly related to the problem. Conflict will result in better decisions. There will be ideological differences. Leaders have to help to create some of the urgency needed for a plot to be interesting. If meetings lack conflict, they are boring. And they basically result in people ‘hanging out’ together instead of solving problems together. Lencioni suggests three ideas leaders can use to help get meaningful dialogue started.

Hook Example - “We have a real problem with apathy. 50% of our students failed at least one class last year. We are all dealing with bored, disengaged students. We don’t want to see students coast through school and pay the price later. We aim for excellence here, and we aren’t getting excellence out of all our students.”

Mining for Conflict - Confront issues that need to be addressed. Don’t avoid them.

Real-time Permission - Let others know the conflict is good. “I’m glad we are having this discussion, even though it may be a little uncomfortable and force us to rethink our work.”

Major Problem #2 is Lack of Contextual Structure. When different types/purposes for the meeting are all lumped together in “meeting stew” with no distinction, the meeting goes all over the place. People talk to fill up the time but not toward a goal or purpose. The dialogue isn’t leading to a decision.

Lencioni presents several types of meetings, but I found two of these to be particularly useful in our school setting.

Type #1 Tactical Meetings - Issues of immediate concern. Most routine meetings should be tactical. They are very structured and includes the following elements:

Lightning Round - A quick, around-the-table reporting session in which everyone indicates two or three priorities for the week. It should take each team member no more than one minute to quickly describe what is on their respective plates. It sets the tone for the meeting.

Progress Review - Reporting of critical information or metrics. What are the key areas of progress either ongoing or established at the previous meeting? Limit metrics to just 2 or 3. Limit discussion of underlying issues here.

Real-time agenda - Once the lightning round and progress review are complete, the agenda is set by what everyone is working on and how the group is performing against its goals, not based on the leader’s best guess 48 hours before the meeting. There must be disciplined spontaneity here. What are the next steps? “Should we develop a more effective question for the common assessment?” “What are we going to do this week about the increasing Ds and Fs in our classes?” Stay focused on tactical issues that must be addressed to ensure short-term objectives are not jeopardized. Any obstacles to tactical issues must be removed.

Possible Obstacles: 1. Temptation to set an agenda. 2. Spending too much time on the lightning round. 3. Discussion about long-term strategic issues. Team member will raise strategic issues that will take the focus off the short-term topics (aka - doing real work together). There is a different meeting for the strategic issues. Any strategic issues brought up are added to the list of topics for the next type of meeting.

Type #2 The Monthly Strategic - The most important and most fun type of meeting. The team debates, analyzes, and decides critical issues that will affect the school/team in fundamental ways. The hardest thing will be having enough time. Issues will have to be limited to only the most important. In this type of meeting, members need to know in advance what will be discussed. Members must come prepared. Decisions must be made with good information, data, research, etc. Decisions are not made on anecdotal information alone. This meeting decides the team’s larger strategic plan and where the team is headed next. Again, fear of conflict can cause these meetings to be ineffective.

Closing

Meetings don’t have to be a waste of time. They can actually save time, because our results are better when our meetings are better. We can be proactive. Alignment saves time because we pull together instead of pulling in a multitude of directions.

A few other notes…

The meeting should always focus on the people in the room. What are we (these people) going to do about the problem? If there is a need to partner with others in addressing the problem, invite them to the next meeting.

Meetings generate energy when…

1. Teams brag about wins
2. Relationships are strengthened
3. The path forward is clear
4. Accountability focuses on the people around the table

Question: What other ideas would you share to have killer meetings? I want to hear from you. Leave a comment below or share your thoughts on or .

Schools Aren't Businesses, and Students Aren't Customers

I've been guilty of looking at business as a metaphor for education many times. I think there are some ways it works okay. We can learn from the business community and certainly need to work closely with business partners. We have some shared interests in good education outcomes. I enjoy reading books from business and a whole variety of areas and applying principles I learn to my work as an educator, where appropriate.

But we have to be very careful with comparing education to the business model. Our mission should be to advance the human condition. Our measure of success as educators is changing lives and creating opportunities. And making our democracy stronger. In business, the bottom line is ultimately measured in dollars and cents. But you can't reduce a child's education to increased profits.

The business metaphor is especially dangerous considering the current political and policy landscape. There are many who would like to privatize education. Better schools, goes the thinking, would result from competition and the marketplace. Capitalism would do it's thing and education would be stronger for it. But that model has proven failed over and again. Learning is not a commodity.

I've also been guilty of referring to students as customers. When I've done this, it is making the point that we should provide good customer service. Our students are the end users of what we do, and we should carefully consider their experience and how school is working for them. 

But this comparison only works to a degree. The relationship between a business and a customer is transactional. The customer doesn't own much responsibility in the relationship. The customer pays for goods or services and expects the business to do the rest. 

But schools need to go beyond treating students like customers. We must make students partners in learning. We are not just delivering learning to students like a product. We must co-create learning with students if it is to be most effective. It requires a degree of pulling together and helping students to contribute to their own learning. 

Metaphors are generally helpful to try to understand the world in deeper and more meaningful ways. But as educators, we have to be careful about comparing what we do to what businesses do. Can we learn from business? Yes! But should schools entirely operate as a business model? I think not.

Question: What are your thoughts on schools as businesses? And students as customers? I want to hear from you. Leave a comment below or respond on or .