The Soul of Learning Environments

We would like to start this blog by reposting an important blog post from 2011 that pretty much states the perspectives that we have here at RAU. It´s a post written by Ante Runnquist at the time he was working at Vittra with research & development. One of many reasons why Ante joined RAU a few months ago is that we share the same perspective on "the soul of learning". We will come back about this further on. This is a great intro to what this blog is all about in the future to come. Original link to the post is beneath the actual post. 

Stay tuned...

// Fredrik Svensson

Learning Environments based on Learning 

A Headmaster at one of our schools in Vittra called me one day and asked: ”- Ante, I have 400 pupils in my school but I have 600 chairs, could you explain that to me?”.  I did my best but the question stayed with me. There must be something strange with the way we use our resources in schools.

In my mind, a creative intellectual environment isn’t created by chairs and it’s certainly not a place where kids sit on their asses all day. So – why so many chairs?

Ask anyone to envision ”a school”. Ask them to describe the images that come to mind; classrooms with desks in rows (possibly in groups), corridors, blackboards (or their contemporary substitutes, whiteboards/smartboards), the tarmac schoolyard… I guess the images are almost universal and timeless.

Even though pedagogy has changed greatly over the last 100 years or so, the physical blueprint for schools, dating back to medieval monasteries remain: it is one based on time-space-topic. Behind this lies a basic assumption that the students need to be regulated , if a school doesn’t verify that the students are in the right place at the right time and doing the right things, they simply wouldn’t do it. And some schools seem to have lots of evidence to prove this.

But what would happen if we changed this assumption? Provided that the tuition is interesting and relevant to the pupils, could we find more intelligent principles than time-space-topic? I think so!

One thing is absolutely clear – we have better schools today than we did 50, or 100 years ago. You might doubt that when you take part of the debate in almost any country, but I think it’s a fact. In general, we have a more positive and democratic view on children as capable, responsible individuals. Our understanding of how children learn has increased: we don’t believe that all pupils learn best sitting behind a desk listening to a teacher. There is more widespread interest in challenge based learning and methods with focus on problem solving, creativity and communication.

Many schools across the world strive to develop 21st century skills – things are really happening! Strangely enough, these changes have left few marks on the basic blueprint of schools. The learning environment in an average school remains the same as 50 years ago. I think we have reached a point where this has to change and the catalyst is digital technology.

When digital technology becomes a part of everyday life in schools things change, and some of these changes could have great impact on our learning environments:

• The point of focus changes: The idea of a teacher in front of a class, conveying ”knowledge” is not functional in a situation were the pupils are equipped with powerful digital tools. When the pupils get their hands on a sources of endless information and communication the teachers position shifts, both literally and figuratively speaking, from ”in front of” the child to ”beside” the child.
• Digital technology encourages collaborative learning: groups are more flexible and vary in both size, function and duration. The idea of a ”class” might be an administrative unit, but it’s certainly not a functional pedagogic concept.
• The technology itself invites to other ways of working: look at any kid when they interact with laptops or mobile devices, do they spontaneously sit themselves by a table, upright on an chair in the middle of a room? Not really.

Learning environments – based on learning
In august 2011, at Telefonplan – just outside Stockholm, Vittra will open a new school. Designed for challenge based learning with digital technology. The ideas behind this project are not new, most of them has been a part of Vittra’s pedagogical model since 1993, but the final pieces of the puzzle came into place in 2010. We owe Stephanie Hamilton at Apple a lot: during a seminar in London she gave us a model for learning environments based on four different environments: the campfire, the cave, the watering hole and the mountain top.*

When we designed one of our new schools, Vittra Telefonplan, we presented Stephanie’s model to some of our pupils, teachers and our designers at the Danish design firm Rosan Bosch. We ended up with new definitions and a 5th environment – The Lab. In our design manual Bosch describe the learning environments like this:

• Campfire situations are characterised by communication flowing from one to many, requiring a space that can accommodate a certain number of people in a group situation, where everybody can focus on the person talking or presenting.
• The watering hole is a place where people come and go, and a learning environment where you can gather in groups of different sizes. A watering hole is a place of exchanging communication, flowing back and forth. The watering hole areas are typically placed where you naturally would go, and where you maybe bump into somebody or something.
• Show-off situations are situations where one person communicates towards the rest of the
  world, showing what he or she can do or has done, thus requiring a physical space for display and exhibition.
• In the cave, communication flows within oneself, requiring a physical frame that furthers seclusion and contemplation. Lastly, the laboratories are places where the students can acquire hands-on experiences, working physically and practically with projects in a societal and experimental context.
• The laboratories inspire students and teachers alike, enlarging the learning experience and inspiring teachers to use different tactile approaches.

When we organise a learning environment based on these principles we radically change the blueprint based on time-space-topic. We end up with an environment based on the needs for learning. During our design process this became evident when the pupils looked at the drawing and started to talk in terms of ”Ohh, I would love to sit there…”, ”If I worked with maths, just think if we had that…”, ”In our school, we would work there everytime we needed to work in groups…”.

When you ask kids what they need to get focused and inspired in school they are very precise, you will get answers on everything from lightning ”exactly where I’m working, not from lamps high up in the ceiling” to the placement of workplaces ”I want to have my back covered and have a view”. The answers are all individual and the point is that you can accommodate their needs if you listen and if you leave the concept of time-space-topic behind.

After a month of work together we looked at the floorplan and suddenly one of the teachers realised that ”Ooops, where are the rooms for different subjects!?”. It took about 30 seconds before we saw the obvious solution: The subjects have their own mobile labs, carts where we can store material and keep the things we currently are working with. Instead of going to a classroom designated for a ”subject”, teachers and pupils will ask themselves ”what kind of environment suits us right now in these subjects?”. And… subjects will be combined when the labs for arts, maths, sciences… are placed together. It’s another blueprint!

Back to the question I got from my friend, the Headmaster. Why do we have so many chairs in our schools? First, I think we have to rethink pedagogy: what are the dynamics of an education with focus on on 21st century skills? Second, as a consequence: we need to rethink the learning environment. When we do this, things start to happen.

*Stephanie Hamilton pointed out that the ”her” ideas about learning environments were formulated by Dr. Richard Thornburg in his article ”Campfires in Cyberspace”. -We still want to credit Stephanie though, Thornburg’s article is well worth reading but Stephanie is also fun and inspirational.

If this got you interested in learning environments or Vittra Telefonplan, feel free to contact us!

Ante Runnquist

Today "Head of Research & Development" at  RAU

Original post: http://vittrabloggen.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/vittra-telefonplan-environments-based-on-learning/