This piece is from the 120th edition of the Dialogic Learning Weekly, an email newsletter I create and send out every Friday.
This week I am sharing some ideas about the design and development of learning spaces. These are all ideas I am actively pursuing or applying in my day to day consulting with facilities teams, schools and architects.
Increase the opportunity for users and stakeholders to share their experiences.
Importantly this is not just sitting with teachers and asking “What do you want?” That is the weakest level of consultation. I imagine a time when it is normal to have a broad user group to talk to and time to have an in-depth dialogue about their experience. After all who are we attempting to help the most?
A design team may never teach a class of thirty children, but they can increase their understanding of the core teaching and learning principles involved. They can observe teachers and students using the existing spaces and spend time discussing the experience.
This type of consultation is best put to use when it is gathered early on in the process. It also has the effect of establishing a collaborative tone for the project. We have to develop a user experience baseline which can guide design decisions and ultimately help articulate the value add.
Invest in pre- and post-occupancy evaluation frameworks.
The Soft Landings Framework from the UK is a great resource that explores the way a new building is handed over, helping the occupiers have a “soft landing”. It is rare for me to experience significant frameworks in school projects, even in some of the most recent brand new schools here in Australia.
You might have experienced a brand new facility or building at your school. What sort of assessment of impact have you experienced? How did the evaluation take into account the shift of time?
It is all about improving our measures of impact, linked to establishing a starting point, a baseline set of data. Often this is merely the condition of the building, not the state of the user behaviour.
One of the ways we can assure quality investment in school facilities is an evaluation framework that incorporates surveys and assessments during handover, one month into post-occupancy, again six months in and a year after completion. Nothing changes unless mindset changes.
Learning environment awards that emphasise long term impact on teaching and learning behaviour.
You will notice the throughline of evaluation and assessment amongst these ideas. The rationale for design awards is not something I can directly impact and is an unusual aspect from a teaching and learning perspective. I understand the role awards can play in the competitive world of architecture.
Reflecting on the way awards are currently conducted for teaching and learning environments I think we have a few things amiss. At the very least they should involve a site visit to experience the spaces in real time and see the core users. The maxim goes: “we measure what we value, and we value what we measure”.
Perhaps if we need awards, they focus on the impact on behaviour. They are time-shifted to allow months if not years to pass, for the key stakeholders to fully realise the potential of their new spaces and have grappled with a change in their behaviour. Only then can we attempt to evaluate the impact.
Let me know if you have experienced anything related to these ideas – I would be grateful to hear your thoughts.
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You can find out more about my work with learning spaces and educational architecture on the Dialogic Learning site.