I am reloading for another day at the conference, the final day of the Transitions19 Conference in Melbourne. I had better share some ideas before I get started, clear the decks and allow some new thinking to prosper today.
Here are my reflections from Day 2 of the conference:
The balance of the day was much better for me than day one. The balance was between the different modes of learning and thinking – it was much more satisfying, and it helped me to stay focused.
More specifically, the day involved:
- presentations of about fifteen minutes each (sitting, listening, processing, tweeting)
- workshops (sitting, movement, chatting, discussion, individual time for reflection, small group collaboration)
- morning tea + lunch (sitting, movement, talking, discussion, connecting+reconnecting with people)
- a bus ride to a school visit (sitting, chatting, conversation, individual time for reflection)
- school visits – children learning (sitting, talking quietly as we explored the school, observation of learning taking place,
- personal time for reflection, a small presentation (more sitting, listening, processing, tweeting)
The provocation of visiting an active school with all the lovely noise of teaching and learning was quite comforting. It helped centre me on the reason we are all trying to improve learning environments. This helped me experience a much more balanced conference day.
What do we notice?
It is rare to have the chance to do a learning environments school visit with children and staff there. There is so much more we can learn from being in an environment that is active. I was in the first group visiting, and I am sure we all learned much more from the experience than visiting without staff and students present.
How might we capture, share and make accessible more of this ambient insight from site visits?
During the school visit, I asked one of the architects who was with me, ‘What do you notice when you look at learning spaces?” He explained he pays attention to the small details and notices how problems are resolved. Reflecting on the group, we all would have noticed something different from the same space. We walked through an early learning centre and Grades 1-3. Architects, designers, educators, doctors, teachers and researchers may all have noticed something unique to the lense we have. The acoustic specialist I was with was seeing how space responded to the noise of learning.
This reminds me of the book by Alexandra Horowitz “On Looking: A Walker’s Guide to the Art of Observation” and how specialist guides might help unlock insights we might never notice. Perhaps there is a way to share guided tours of the same learning space – curated cues from designers, teachers and other specialists. Maybe it is just a short briefing framework that helps us look more closely beyond our familiar frame.
Student Participation in the Design Process
The reflection activity during the regular conference programme asked us to look at how much participation students might have in the design process. One of the other workshops were using Lego in small group collaboration to map out the levels of participation throughout the process. Generally speaking, I want to see more students involved in the design process. But it often feels a bit empty and tokenistic.
I have run student workshops during the master planning process for schools, and their insights are so vital. Our students have a different story to tell of the environments we share. We need to find lots of different ways to surface these stories. It is not just about asking students to ‘redesign the playground’ or big open draw whatever you want in your new school type tasks. The cold reality of our work means less grappling hook elevators and flying foxes to get around the campus, unfortunately.
It makes me wonder about the authentic, meaningful role that our learners can have in the process. I want to talk to more people about their ideas for this as I explore it further.
Shadowing students using design thinking approaches is an excellent start as it puts the learner’s experience at the centre of challenging our assumptions. Many schools I work with over the years have used this technique to uncover insights previously disconnected from strategic planning.
Protospaces
Some of the presentations and the site visit featured active prototyping on low budgets. This was a missing element from the process diagrams we had seen. Prototyping done well, gives students and staff the chance to learn and experience something – not just talk about what might be. Clarity comes from action.
At the school visit prototyping lower budget spaces had been an integral part of the success fo their project. I wondered if prototyping was just the norm and how much we might gain from adopting a prototyping approach to the whole process.
Prototyping comes with risk and some uncertainty – how much stability do you need in a learning environment to make the most of prototyping a range of ideas. Perhaps it is like the risk portfolio – we need to balance our risks, some low some high. Stability here means a higher propensity for risk there.
Key Takeaway
A critical reflection for me from day two is that we need to keep asking questions about the process of designing schools and new learning environments. We need more innovation within the process, not just the outcome.
Thanks for exploring my reflections with me, let me know what you think in the comments below. It is the final day of the conference today, and I will be sharing more in my newsletter later today.